Quote of the Day:

Mrs. Clinton’s speech should bust any remaining illusions that she will return her party to her husband’s 1990s centrism. She is running as an Obama-Warren Democrat, which means that is also how she would govern.

–the Wall Street Journal

Byron York’s report on Saturday’s reset of the Clinton campaign for president described Mrs. Clinton as “the fightingest fighter in the fight.” Clinton’s vow to fight for Americans was reminiscent of Al Gore’s similar vow to fight for Americans. It raised the same question now as it did when Gore was going to wage all out war on the status quo: who do you think has been in power the last eight years?

In 2015 and 2016, the fight-for-you rhetorical device from a Democrat has to be scarier than it was when Al Gore adopted it, however:  President Obama has designated himself as the fighter-in-chief for the middle class. And look what happened to the middle class during his tenure. Its income is stagnant and fewer new people are making it into the middle class.

The Wall Street Journal had a good commentary piece on Mrs. Clinton’s Saturday event:

Any doubt about Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy was put to rest on Saturday when she re-launched her presidential bid with a speech that Elizabeth Warren might have given. The former Secretary of State is running to the left even of President Obama, embracing Mr. Obama’s identity politics of race, sex and class but adding Senator Warren’s economic themes.

“The financial industry and many multinational corporations have created huge wealth for a few by focusing too much on short-term profit and too little on long-term value—too much on complex trading schemes and stock buybacks, too little on investments in new businesses, jobs and fair compensation,” she said on Roosevelt Island in New York City.

So here is Mrs. Clinton’s answer to the dilemma that any Democrat faces after the Obama Presidency: How do you explain seven years of historically slow economic growth and stagnant incomes?

The Wall Street Journal points out that Mrs. Clinton could have answered this dilemma by running on her husband’s four years of prosperity but that that would put her at odds with the modern Democratic Party, which had moved decidedly Warren-ward. Instead of embracing Bill Clinton’s pragmatism, she is going for class warfare, blaming the rich, even though she has become very rich for doing work that some might consider socially unproductive. Note to Republicans: this worked in 2012 and it could work again next year.