Hillary Clinton has adopted a new populist tone on the campaign trail with Democrats this week, taking aim at Wall Street.
The former secretary of state is widely considered to be the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 if she runs, but is viewed as an establishment figure by some in the party’s left flank who favor stricter regulation of big banks.
Appearing at an event for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley in Massachusetts Friday, Clinton praised Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the champion of Wall Street critics who was also at the event.
“I love watching Elizabeth give it to those who deserve to get it,” Clinton said of the Massachusetts Democrat’s efforts to promote tougher regulation of big banks and aggressive questioning of bank regulators during congressional hearings.
Clinton also called Warren the “passionate champion for working people and middle-class families.”
Some liberals have pushed for Warren to consider running for the Democratic presidential nomination to challenge Clinton’s presumptive candidacy from the Left. Warren, a freshman senator, has deflected such suggestions in the past, although she did not clearly rule out the possibility in an interview with People Magazine this week, saying that “[i]f there’s any lesson I’ve learned in the last five years, it’s don’t be so sure about what lies ahead. There are amazing doors that could open.”
Clinton’s rhetoric on Wall Street also has shifted this week. Campaigning for Sen. Al Franken in his Minnesota re-election campaign on Thursday, she said that even before the financial crisis, “a lot of us were calling for regulating derivatives and other complex financial products, closing the carried-interest loophole, getting control of skyrocketing CEO pay, addressing other excesses, and we’ve made progress. But there’s a lot of unfinished business to make sure we don’t end up once again with big banks taking big risks and leaving taxpayers holding the bag.”
In addition to viewing Clinton as too close to business interests during her own tenure as New York senator and in President Obama’s Cabinet, many on the Left regard her husband, President Bill Clinton, as complicit in the deregulation of derivatives that preceded the financial crisis.
