Banking executives personally called the offices of DCCC Chairman Steve Israel and DCCC Finance Chairman Joe Crowley last week demanding answers, three financial services lobbyists told POLITICO.com.
“They were livid,” said one Democratic lobbyist with banking clients.
The execs asked the lawmakers: “What are you doing? Do you even understand some of the things that they’ve called for?” said another lobbyist with financial services clients who is a former Democratic Senate aide.
Wow. In embracing Occupy Wall Street, Democrats have managed to alienate Wall Street lobbyists and banking execs? What a fatal political misstep! Given their far reaching popularity, how will Dems ever recover?
The protesters have been spending about $1,500 a day on food, and also just covered a $2,000 laundry bill for sleeping bags and jackets and sweaters. They've spent about $20,000 on equipment such as laptops and cameras, and costs associated with streaming video of the protest on the Internet.
They also have a mountain of donated goods, from blankets to cans of food to swim goggles to protect them from pepper spray -- some stored in a cavernous space on Broadway a block from Wall Street.
Roughly $8,000 is now coming in every day just from the lock boxes set up to take donations at Zuccotti Park, said Darrell Prince, an activist using his business background to keep track of the daily donations. More is coming through the mail and online.
"It's way more support than we ever thought would come in," Prince said.
The cash flow has forced changes in the "finance working group" that arose spontaneously among the self-governed protesters to handle the movement's money.
Prince, who has worked in sales, said the volunteers they recruit for the work generally "have experience running their own businesses or have worked in the industry."
They've also been getting help from a nonprofit group. Occupy Wall Street officially became a project of the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance for Global Justice on Sept. 28, 11 days after protesters began camping out at the park.
The status allows the alliance to process donations on the movement's behalf, and makes it responsible for tax reporting.
"They approached us after people started wanting to give them money," said Chuck Kaufman, a coordinator for the alliance. "We agreed, not realizing the volume that it was going to turn out to be. It's been a learning experience for both of us."
The Manhattan activists have been sticking to a simple, organized routine that works in the ragtag protest community.
In the park, passersby drop bills or coins into monitored lock boxes. Several times a day, volunteers collect the boxes and bring them to a central point.
The boxes are then taken to a nearby office space that is itself a gift from a New York union.
Prince said about $350,000 has been donated by credit card through the movement's Web site, while the rest was given by mail or in person.
The alliance takes 7% of each credit card donation. That gets split between the credit card companies' fees and the salary of the alliance's accountant, Kaufman said.
Prince said volunteers were working to have Occupy Wall Street's financial records posted online as soon as the end of the week.
The amorphous group has no clear plans yet on how to spend much of the money. For now, the fund doles out $100 a day to each of the dozen "working groups" that keep the month-long protest going -- from sanitation and medical to finance and media.
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