Though it is a convenient supposed "smackdown" for those opposed to Senator Clinton, the "Hillary is a corporate stooge" meme has a whole lot less basis in fact than most of them realize. Cribbing from the Left Coaster (here, here and here), let me quote the conclusion reached there about Senator Clinton's record:

[T]he existing evidence, based on her Senatorial voting records compiled by Progressive Punch, Americans for Democratic Action, AFL-CIO and SEIU, does not really support this allegation. Indeed, the evidence suggests that Sen. Clinton's voting patterns are substantially and surprisingly progressive (ranging typically from 90-100%), including on corporate or labor issues. There are certainly serious issues where Sen. Clinton has unfortunately taken anti-progressive positions (e.g., her vote for a version of the Bankruptcy Bill in 2001), but the data reviewed here suggests that overall, she is far more progressive than corporatist. In the absence of additional or new data, I have to conclude that the label "Corporate Democrat", as applied to her, is inappropriate and extraordinarily misleading. In other words, while it is true that she has strong links to corporate America and corporatist interests, there is little or no evidence that she systematically votes in lock-step with those interests or even significantly in line with their positions.

But let's go to an example that shows her anti-corporate efforts: Hillary's opposition to corporate interests was at the center of her health care plan. In this Newsweek piece by Susan Bedell Smith, Smith is so busy trying to make marital tensions between Bill and Hillary the major reason for the plan's failure that, in my opinion, she fails to properly emphasize the anti-corporate stance Hillary took (the part I think should have been emphasized more is bolded):

Nor has she touched on the most sensitive topic of all: how the Clintons' marital tensions complicated the health-care debate at crucial moments.

Hillary was widely criticized for making the health task-force deliberations secret, insisting on pushing her proposal as an all-or-nothing package and targeting the health-care establishment as "the enemy" to be fought with a "war room." When Bill tried to make the plan more flexible, he had to defer to her, in part because of their implicit marital bargain, in which Bill ceded her power as a trade-off for his history of infidelity. In July 1994, he was urged to accept a compromise plan with less than the universal coverage that Hillary wanted. When he unexpectedly told a group of governors in Boston that he would be willing to take 95 percent, Hillary immediately called her husband. "What the f––– are you doing up there?" she screamed, according to a West Wing adviser who was in her office at the time. "I want to see you as soon as you get back." The next morning the president not only recanted his statement but apologized.

And when Nicholas Confessore wrote his seminal piece on K Street (link), Hillary's health care plan was a central topic of how corporate interests defeated legislation they disliked. Admitting there were other contributing factors (notice that marital tensions between Bill and Hillary is not on his list), here is what Confessore wrote:

There were, of course, many reasons why Clinton failed, from mishandling relations with congressional leaders to the perceived insularity and arrogance of the task force of policy wonks Hillary Clinton assembled to tackle the challenge of achieving universal health care. But another major obstacle was the business and health-care interests on K Street. Clinton worked to win their backing. Among other things, his plan would have capped employer contributions to workers' health insurance at a level far below what many large companies, like General Motors and Kodak, were already paying to their employees' health plans, saving the companies billions of dollars. But some of those firms nevertheless denounced Clinton's plan after it was unveiled, rightly believing that they could bid up the price of their support even more. Meanwhile, conservative activists, eager to deny a new Democratic president his first major political victory, worked to convince business lobbyists that they would gain more by opposing Clinton than by supporting him. As more and more K Street lobbies abandoned Clinton, the plan went down to defeat.

And speaking of health care, I believe it is fair to say that the strongest opposition to corporate interests comes from unions, for whom health care costs is a top issue. I just want to point out that although they have opposed mandates for health care that were unaccompanied by provisions to cap costs for working families, both the two biggest union gurus, Gerald McEntee of AFSCME and Andy Stern of SEIU have recently backed plans including mandates. (link) So, instead of mandates being a favor to the corporate interests, as Markos Moulitsas recently claimed (link), it is equally or perhaps more reasonable to say that the Clinton and Edwards plans, which include mandates, are supported by the natural enemies of corporate health care interests.

Hillary is not a perfect candidate. And her record on corporate issues is not perfect. But neither is it is as bad as many of her political opponents would have us believe.