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Washington [Updated 2:40 p.m.] Hillary Rodham Clintons recent comment about trickle-down economics has launched a war of spin and an effort Monday by Mrs. Clinton to correct herself.

First, heres what the likely 2016 presidential candidate said at a campaign event last Friday for Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial candidate:

Dont let anybody tell you that its corporations and businesses that create jobs, former Secretary of State Clinton said in Boston. You know that old theory, trickle-down economics. That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly. One of the things my husband says when people say, What did you bring to Washington? He says, I brought arithmetic.

That first sentence is similar to a gaffe President Obama made in his 2012 reelection campaign, when he said: If youve got a business you didnt build that. Somebody else made that happen. His GOP opponent, Mitt Romney, pounded him mercilessly over that one (though Mr. Romney still lost).

Its Hillary Clintons You Didnt Build That Moment and its a safe bet that the quote will come back to haunt her, writes Benjamin Austin at FreePatriot.org.

On Monday, Clinton responded to the kerfuffle in comments at a campaign appearance for Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in upstate New York.

Nan Hayworth, Congressman Maloneys rival, represents a discredited economic theory that will hurt middle-class families, Clinton said, according to a report in Politico. I shorthanded this point the other day, so let me be absolutely clear on what [Ive been saying for decades]. Our economy grows when businesses and entrepreneurs create good-paying jobs here in America and workers and families are empowered to build from the bottom up. Not when we hand out tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs or stash their profits overseas.

Regardless of how one interprets Clintons original comment, theres little doubt the former first ladys opponents will use it against her in the presidential campaign, if she runs.

Its not Clintons first gaffe of the unofficial 2016 race. This past June, when she released her latest book, Hard Choices, she said she and her husband, the ex-president, came out of the White House in 2001 dead broke. For a couple that could command multimillion-dollar book deals and six-figure speaking gigs, the comment seemed strangely off. PolitiFact.com rated it mostly false.

As before, liberal watchdog groups are jumping in to defend her, calling for a look at the context.

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Hillary Clinton says businesses dont create jobs. Uh-oh. (+video)