CNN is asking if financial regulation will hurt the Democrats fundraising:

They do well with Wall Street, but Democrats may now risk biting the hand that feeds many of them — as President Obama and top party leaders press for financial reform.

And a key question arises: will there be a squeeze on the money flowing from New York into Democrats’ campaign coffers?

The answer is not so simple.

It’s funny, but the right has been trying to paint the Democrats as being in the pocket of Wall Street. That has been pretty evident for the past few years, but when Republicans held power that wasn’t the case:

Wall Street has been a long-time cash cow for both parties — with the party in power or assuming power the biggest beneficiary.

An OpenSecrets.org analysis found that in the 2008 election cycle, $89,221,944 was given to Democrats; $68,022,536 for Republicans.

And if you look at the graph supplied by CNN, you quickly see that Wall Street does always follow the party of power

So we really aren’t sure if new regulation will hurt the Democrats. There’s a chance that it could end up hurting the Republicans. It depends on what happens in the polls this year and what our political landscape looks like going into 2012.

It’s also interesting to see the sharp rise in donations to both parties from Wall Street in 2008. I guess when Wall Street was worrying about their future they decided to pay off both parties, hoping to get everything to go their way, but given the fact that Democrats have been the ones pushing real reform, it looks like the payoff to Republicans was the only one that really worked.