Pop quiz: Of the leading Democratic presidential contenders, who's the most populist?

Judging from the speeches they delivered at this week's Take Back America conference--an annual gathering of thousands of progressive activists--it's not Senator Barack Obama, the former community organizer who called for hope-driven political transformation. Nor is it former Senator John Edwards, the onetime corporation-suing trial attorney who pointed out his recent antipoverty work. It's Senator Hillary Clinton.

Her speech was loaded with us-versus-them, I'm-on-your-side, anti-corporate references. Before she took the stage, she was introduced by Ellen Malcolm of EMILY's List (a political action conference that funds Democratic women candidates), and Malcolm exclaimed that Clinton, as a young professional, "instead of joining a big law firm...joined the Children's Defense Fund." (But wasn't she a partner in the Rose Law Firm, a prominent corporate law firm in Arkansas?) "She takes on the power," Malcolm declared.

Clinton told the crowd that many Americans these days "feel invisible." And she feels their invisibility. Families, she said, are working harder for less. Productivity is up 18 percent in recent years, yet the average family income is down. She decried "growing economic inequality" and pointed to the expanding gap between CEO and worker pay. She called for a "new generator of jobs." She demanded that the revolving door between corporate lobbyists and the government be closed. The top 2 percent in America, she complained, control 22 percent of the nation's wealth--the highest concentration of wealth in the United States since 1929. "Enough with corporate welfare and golden parachutes," she nearly shouted. She vowed to stand up for unions.

Most of the news coverage of the speech focused on the moment when she was booed. That came when she was discussing the Iraq war. She promised that she would end the war in Iraq if elected president. "The best way to support our troops is to bring them home," she said. Then Clinton added, "The American military has succeeded; it is the Iraqi government that has failed." That's when the hooting came. A slice of the audience was offended by her blame-the-victim stance. Rather than concede that she had been wrong to vote for the war and then to support it, she was suggesting the real problem was those darn Iraqis who cannot get their act together in the aftermath of a poorly-planned U.S. invasion and occupation. But Clinton was not put off by the jeers. "I love coming here every year," she quipped. "I see the signs [that say] 'Lead us out of Iraq.' That's what I'm trying to do." The booing subsided, and the many HRC fans in the audience cheered her on.

That moment was the money shot of the day. But as--if not more--interesting was Clinton's depiction of herself as the anti-corporate savior of working Americans. "Their needs and their lives....are not invisible to me," she proclaimed. While Obama had tugged at the hearts of the Take Back America crowd and Edwards had pitched a cerebral case (see my posting from yesterday), Clinton had grabbed the audience members by the....you-know-what.

This sales pitch would ring truer were the Clinton campaign not fueled and staffed by corporate-geared lobbyists and consultants. My Nation colleague Ari Berman recently detailed Clinton's corporate connections in an extensive piece. He wrote:

Her chief strategist, Mark Penn, not only polls for America's biggest companies but also runs one of the world's premier PR agencies. A bevy of current and former Hillary advisers, including her communications guru, Howard Wolfson, are linked to a prominent lobbying and PR firm--the Glover Park Group--that has cozied up to the pharmaceutical industry and Rupert Murdoch. Her fundraiser in chief, Terry McAuliffe, has the priciest Rolodex in Washington, luring high-rolling contributors to Clinton's campaign. Her husband, since leaving the presidency, has made millions giving speeches and counsel to investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. They house, in addition to other Wall Street firms, the Clintons' closest economic advisers, such as Bob Rubin and Roger Altman, whose DC brain trust, the Hamilton Project, is Clinton's economic team in waiting. Even the liberal in her camp, former deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes, has lobbied for the telecom and healthcare industries, including a for-profit nursing home association indicted in Texas for improperly funneling money to disgraced former House majority leader Tom DeLay. "She's got a deeper bench of big money and corporate supporters than her competitors," says Eli Attie, a former speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. Not only is Hillary more reliant on large donations and corporate money than her Democratic rivals, but advisers in her inner circle are closely affiliated with unionbusters, GOP operatives, conservative media and other Democratic Party antagonists.

I commend the entire article. After reading it, you might want to exclaim, "Populist Hillary, heal thyself."

WHAT MAKES Ds and Rs DIFFERENT? An interesting moment came during House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's address to the Take Back America gang. It was a standard-fare address. She cited her accomplishments as speaker and called on the activists to pressure the Bush administration and Republicans to end the war. Decrying the "tragedy" of Iraq, she noted the loss of 3500 American soldiers there, and the crowd respectfully applauded. And don't forget, she added, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been killed during the war: "They're all God's children." The audience responded with a standing ovation. Could you see a conservative crowd applauding such a recognition of the full tragedy of Iraq? That's a rhetorical question.

Posted by David Corn at June 20, 2007 03:09 PM