Clinton can’t stop gaffes on crony capitalism

Can Hillary Clinton, who says she and her husband went on from being “dead broke” in 2001 to rake in an estimated $155 million, run for president as the nominee of a party that is obsessed with income inequality? No problem, she toldThe Guardian, because the Clintons pay their taxes. The Democratic 2016 frontrunner dismissed the idea that voters would see a corporate-connected candidate with a nine-digit income in the past decade as part of the problem: “‘But they don't see me as part of the problem,’ she protests, ‘because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we've done it through dint of hard work.’” The name she was not naming, presumably, was that of Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee famously called “a vampire” by President Obama’s re-election campaign for his work in private equity. Untold billions of pixels were slain in the name of discussing Romney’s tax payments, with Team Obama arguing that Romney paying the lowest possible tax rates was an unpatriotic act.

[In a new Quinnipiac poll, former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton slips a bit among Iowa voters, although they continue to choose Clinton when matched against each of the top potential GOP 2016 contenders.]

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