Hillary Clinton is a bright spot on a gloomy Democratic election landscape

SAN FRANCISCO In this midterm election season, it may not be good to be a Democrat but it is very good to be Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The presumptive Democratic front-runner for 2016 is among her partys best assets to raise money and energize voters amid a gloomy election landscape for Democrats this fall, and she is campaigning hard even on behalf of apparent lost causes.

As a pair of events this week in California illustrated, Clintons efforts to raise money and get out the vote for Democratic congressional and gubernatorial candidates often dovetail with her own political agenda. Her first political season after stepping down as secretary of state has combined political boosterism for Democrats including in key presidential states with high-dollar fundraising and lucrative paid speeches.

The appearances give revealing clues as to what kind of candidate Clinton might be in two years emphasizing womens issues and striving to thread the needle between her hawkish, centrist history and the more liberal base that rejected her in favor of Barack Obama in 2008.

Here in San Francisco on Monday, Clinton gave a spirited call to arms to Democrats as she road-tested what is likely to be her economic message if she runs again. The November midterms, she said, come down to a simple question: Whos on your side?

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton urged Kentucky voters to put another crack in that glass ceiling and send Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) to the Senate during a rally in Louisville on Wednesday. (AP)

She sounded close to her partys populist marrow when she decried the erosion of economic security for many working Americans, and a long way from her tone-deaf remark earlier this year about being dead broke when she and Bill Clinton left the White House in 2000.

Its time to elect leaders who will fight for everyone to get a fair shot at the American dream, Hillary Clinton said, adding proudly that more than 100 women are running as Democratic candidates for Congress this year. I cant think of a better way to make Congress start working for American families again than electing every last one of them.

Clinton was the headliner at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) event billed as the Ultimate Womens Power Luncheon, with ticket prices ranging from $500 a person to $32,400 per couple, for a total of $1.4 million raised. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was the undercard. Organizers said about 800 people attended.

Pelosi, who was speaker before Democrats lost the House in 2010, joked that while that made her the highest-ranking woman in U.S. politics, Id like to give up that title.

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Hillary Clinton is a bright spot on a gloomy Democratic election landscape

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