Hillary Clinton has always been to Obama's left on economics [View all]

[Skinner]

Money quote: "On the kind of pocketbook issues Clinton spent most of yesterday's speech discussing, she's always been on the left wing of the Democratic Party."

At a dramatic weekend rally on Roosevelt Island, Hillary Clinton unleashed a speech that was in some ways strikingly liberal, especially for a candidate who's not facing meaningful opposition in the Democratic primary. Politico's Glenn Thrush says it shows that "the Democratic Party is moving left fast" and Clinton knows it, which is why she uncorked "economic-inequality rhetoric could have been comfortably uttered by the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Joseph Stiglitz, Bernie Sanders, or Martin O’Malley."

The truth, however, is that on the kind of pocketbook issues Clinton spent most of yesterday's speech discussing, she's always been on the left wing of the Democratic Party. She's been in the public eye far too long to have avoided inconsistencies over the years. But in positional terms, somewhat to the left of Obama — or Bill Clinton — on economics is where she's been this whole time.

Clinton's voting record was to the left of Obama's

In 2008, both Clinton and Obama spent a lot of time debating a single fateful vote she cast in 2002 in favor of George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. But if you look at all the votes that were cast during the four years they served together in the Senate, it was Clinton who amassed the more liberal record.

Read more: http://www.vox.com/2015/6/15/8779449/hillary-clinton-populist-record