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FEATURE Wall Street crowd by galvaniz- ing against one-percenters is the same person who continues to court some of the nation's wealthiest donors. According to the Sunlight Foundation, Warren adopted a busy fundraising schedule across the East Coast in March, raising at least $23,500 from 33 donors at one event and meeting with one well-to-do couple who have fronted half a million dollars for political causes since 1996. Still—despite her tough talk for The Comeback I Wall Street—not every lender rails against the idea of a Sen. Warren. That became apparent when former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, president of the conser- vative-leaning American Bankers Association, all but lined up behind Warren for the CFPB nomination in a speech in May last year. That may be because Warren, by all accounts, wanted a warmer, more collaborative relationship with the financial services indus- try. The Sunlight Foundation re- ported that the CFPB leader held no fewer than 15 private meetings in December 2010 with prominent bankers like Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. One of them, Roger Beverage, CEO of the Oklahoma Bankers Association, remembers Warren, a fellow Oklahoman, as someone "very open and receptive" to the needs of the banking community. The 20-plus-year industry vet- eran admits that he "judged her before I got to know her based on her reputation," which he says follows from her scholarly work as a bankruptcy lawyer and professor. An Oklahoma City meeting in September 2010 changed his opinion. "I felt like she was someone Warren mirrors the fiery de- fense she so often articulates for working-class values. When she left the Beltway last year, a fad- ed political future awaited the woman who first conceived of a consumer bureau and nearly saw it through to fruition. Op- portunity sent her back into the ring to fight for those values, or so her campaign would say. n many ways, the come- back candidacy of Elizabeth veteran and director of finan- cial regulation studies with the conservative-leaning Cato Institute, doesn't see much in the way of political points for Warren so far. "She's running in Massachusetts—arguably the most liberal state in the nation— and she's neck-and-neck," he tells us. "This woman should be 10 to 15 points and she's not. It's a 50-50 race." unemployment rates stay above 8 percent. Mark Calabria, a political seat for Massachusetts in the Senate would certainly aid the embattled consumer bureau as it struggles under Republican ef- forts to defund it and change the way it operates. For the residen- tial mortgage marketplace, which remains under scrutiny by the CFPB, the success of her political career could mean momentum for half of the more than 300 rules that still need writing under Dodd-Frank. Beverage hasn't changed his mind about the candidate. Asked who understood the nature of community banks better than anyone else," he says. "At the time it was my view that Elizabeth was more open to community banking than anyone else was. And that she could be someone we could work with when she was appointed to the bureau. "I still believe that," he tells us. Washington, D.C., as Sen. Warren is subject to the twists and turns of similar narratives. Like any candidate for higher office, the Harvard professor faces the unpredictable sway of long coattails in a presidential election year. A Gallup poll from June found that 47 percent of respondents disapprove of Obama's turn with the economy, a message historically more likely to resonate if job growth continues to wind down and Whether she returns to have skin in the game, he says. "If the Democrats want to keep control of the Senate, this is a big race," he adds. "If they don't win Massachusetts"—a possibil- ity since Brown assumed the Kennedy seat in 2009—"they have no chance of keeping the Senate." Of more interest to some—es- With Warren, Democrats how he would feel about a Sen. Warren, he admits that he hasn't followed the horserace in Massachusetts, but stands by his first impression of the candidate when her job was to stand up the CFPB. "If she's elected, she'll be pecially those in the banking community—is how the CFPB founder will transition to law- maker if she wins. A Democratic someone we can talk to about community banking issues, and I suspect they're not any different in Massachusetts," she says. "I think she'll be someone approachable and good for com- munity banks." THE M REPORT | 31