Clinton, FroM Page 1:
Ran as populist candidate in 2008
referred to the first lady and her aides as “the Bolsheviks.”
InClinton’s2008presidential campaign,shepositionedherself as the populist candidate to the left of Barack Obama on several economic issues, angering some of her Wall Street donors and earning broad support among organized labor and workingclass voters.
Advisers have lists at the ready outlining Clinton’s calls as earlyas2007toeliminatethesocalled carried interest loophole, roll back the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, impose tighter regulations on derivatives and place limits on chief executives’ compensation.
“Let’s finally do something about the growing economic inequality that is tearing our country apart,” Clinton said in June 2007. “The top 1 percent of our households,” she added, “held 22 percent of our nation’s wealth.”
A 16-page dossier, titled “Hillary Clinton: A Lifetime Champion of Income Opportunity” and assembled by a close friend and adviser to Clinton, calls Warren a “footnote.” The document, provided to The New York Times, presents 40 instances in which Clinton took the same stance as Warren on issues, in some cases years before the senator’s ascent in the national spotlight.
But that was then and this is now, when everything Clinton does will be viewed through the lens of a party under the influence of Warren and her blistering critique of the financial sec- tor.
Robert Reich, a secretary of labor during the Clinton administration who has advised Clinton’s campaign, said the comparison with Warren “personalizes it far too much.”
“This is a broad-based movement to take back our democracy and make the economy work for everybody instead of a small group at the top,” he said.
For seven years, Clinton has been out of domestic policy, and in that time the populist movement caught fire. In the years Clinton served as secretary of state and since she left the State Department in early 2013, she has become more associated with the centrist policies of the Bill Clinton years than with policies of raising taxes on the wealthy and increasing government services that have become widely adopted on the left.
“This perception comes because she wasn’t involved in the discussion for so long,” Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist, said of Clinton. Because, she added, in the White House “she had this reputation as being the very left-wing, liberal, Elizabeth Warren type.”
Duringthesameperiodwhen Hillary Clinton was absent from domestic debates, the policies of the Bill Clinton years were recast.
In her 2008 campaign, Clinton cited the prosperity of the 1990s. Today, the trade deals, Wall Street deregulation and deficit reduction that Bill Clinton oversaw are often blamed as contributing to the divide between a tiny sliver of the wealthiest and the vast majority of Americans.
“I remember when Bill Clinton was running in 1992 and his line was ‘putting people first,’” said Dean Baker, an economist and a director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “He just didn’t follow through on that” and instead emphasized deficit reduction and trade deals, he added.
A week ago, Hillary Clinton subtly distanced herself from the trade policies associated with the 1990s. In response to a trade agreement reached April 16 by Republican and Democratic leaders, her spokesman, Nick Merrill, said Clinton believed that any trade deal should protect American workers, raise wages and create jobs in the United States.
“The goal is greater prosperity and security for American families, not trade for trade’s sake,” Merrill said in a statement.
Clinton will begin to present more specific policy proposals next month. In the meantime, she has expressed support for an increase in the minimum wage, paid family medical leave and the closing of corporate tax loopholes.
Clinton “wakes up asking how she can accomplish real things for families, not who she can attack,” said Gene Sperling, an economic adviser in the Clinton andObamaadministrations. “When she shows that fighting populist edge, it is for a purpose.”