The desire to assail too-big-to-fail-banks energizes the left and has propelled Senator Elizabeth Warren and the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. But then, some of the party’s most prodigious donors come from the financial industry and don’t much care for its vilification. And Bill Clinton’s administration oversaw the deregulation on Wall Street.

The short version: Directionally, Mrs. Clinton favors more intensive regulation of Wall Street than what is in place now. Bank executives and lobbyists will find little to like in her plan. But her approach stops short of the wholesale breakup of too-big-to-fail banks favored by Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Warren.

Mrs. Clinton proposes changes that would put stiff new costs on the largest banks and give regulators greater power to break up an institution they view as too sprawling and risky. But her plan does not envision a return to the era of the Glass-Steagall Act, the 1930s law requiring commercial banking and investment banking to remain separate. It was reversed by Congress during the Bill Clinton administration (an action that had less to do with the global financial crisis than many liberal activists would suggest).

With the first Democratic debate taking place next week, the stage is set for financial reform to be a major area where Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders can clash.