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Clinton's Camp: Hillary Was Liberal Long Before Liz Warren Showed Up
Tuesday, April 21, 2015 10:36 AM
By: Andrea Billups
Eager to embrace liberals in her party who may be more aligned with the darling of the left, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton is out to prove her populist edge, The New York Times reports.
Campaigning on low-key stops across New Hampshire, Clinton is offering familiar verbiage that seems to connect her to Warren's tone, the Times noted.
"The deck is stacked in their favor," Clinton said of the wealthy. "My job is to reshuffle the cards."
The Times compared that to dialogue from Warren, who has said: "The game is rigged. Rigged to work for those who have money and power."
Clinton's economic message, the Times pointed out, is also tracking far from Wall Street and more toward Main Street, much like Warren's familiar refrains. How she translates her high profile, wealth and deep connections to the powerful to a message for the little guy will become a challenge for her campaign, the Times said.
Political and media observers score her efforts differently.
Bloomberg, noted the Times, dubbed Clinton as "scared of the left." But others who have worked with her personally say she is not charting a different path from her own longtime beliefs.
Her 2008 campaign policy director Neera Tandem, now president of the Center for American Progress, defended Clinton.
"I don't know why we have this semi-collective amnesia about her past positions," Tanden told the Times. "She's following no one on these issues."
But MSNBC called her early campaign efforts "staged" and "contrived."
"I wish I could sit here and say it's been a wonderful week for Hillary Clinton, but it hasn't," said Forbes's Steve Ungar to MSNBC. "All political campaigns are contrived, but the whole point of a good one is to contrive the campaign to not appear contrived, and I don't think I've seen a more contrived-appearing campaign ever."
But the Associated Press described her rollout as making amends with liberals in her party, describing some of her issues as "do-overs" as she learned from past "missteps."
