Dems Take Aim at Big Business

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, heading into primaries in states struggling with joblessness and the mortgage crisis, are sharpening their attacks on big business, the Wall Street Journal reports. Both are lambasting oil companies, corporate tax cuts, and health insurers. Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary will be a test of which candidate has gained the populist high ground once held by John Edwards. A bigger test comes March 4 in Ohio.

"The oil companies, the drug companies, have had seven years of a president who stands up for them," said Clinton. "It's time we had a president who stands up for all of you." Obama, meanwhile, has earned the endorsement of the politically powerful Service Employees International Union and has turned NAFTA—enacted during President Clinton’s administration and a bane to unions—into political gold. (More Barack Obama stories.)