Indeed, that is disappointing. But to be fair, no Democratic candidate prior to Clinton had much appeal to the broader masses because they were too far to the left. It was only by shifting slightly to the right and becoming more moderate that they could hope to win an election, and deregulating the financial industry cons uted a step in that direction.
Besides, they were swept up in the economic orthodoxy that pervaded the time. Friedrich Hayek's philosophy of freeing the market was on the ascendancy, in large part due to the work of Milton Friedman (and the politicians who followed him like Raegan and Thatcher). So at the time, what they were doing seemed like a good idea. It's only hindsight with the GFC that economists can claim that the financial industry boom in the immediate aftermath of the deregulation was unsustainable, and that the bubble would eventually burst.