Hillary Clinton's ties

to America's largest corporations

are beginning to attract scrutiny

Two major US newspapers published articles

over the weekend about her tenure

on the board of Wal-Mart,

the retail behemoth with a

wicked anti-union record

In the money-dominated American political system,

all major candidates are forced to court

big business to some extent

Yet for a Democrat, the professed party

of working people, Hillary has more ties than most

Hillary Clinton's ties to America's largest corporations are beginning to attract scrutiny. Two major US newspapers published articles over the weekend about her tenure on the board of Wal-Mart, the retail behemoth with a wicked anti-union record.

The Nation magazine recently printed a large feature of mine, Hillary Inc., exploring the corporate connections of Hillary and her top advisers - the people who will run and execute her presidential campaign and presumably hold prominent positions in a second Clinton White House.

In the money-dominated American political system, all major candidates are forced to court big business to some extent. Yet for a Democrat, the professed party of working people, Hillary has more ties than most.

She's more reliant on large donations and corporate money than her Democratic rivals, like Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Moreover, the advisers in her inner circle are closely affiliated with union-busters, GOP operatives, conservative media and other Democratic Party antagonists.

Her chief strategist, Mark Penn, not only polls for America's biggest companies but also runs one of the world's premier PR agencies, Burson-Marsteller, which helps corporations squash union organizing drives.

A bevy of current and former Hillary advisers, including her communications guru, are linked to a powerful lobbying and PR firm - the Glover Park Group - that has cozied up to the pharmaceutical industry and News Corp honcho Rupert Murdoch, who threw a fundraiser for Clinton last year.

Her ties to corporate America, along with the scarring defeat of healthcare reform in 1993-1994, have likely limited what Hillary believes is possible and will fight to achieve. As one former Clinton adviser told me:

"If you surround yourself by people who live off of big corporations, that's going to affect the advice they give you and your own worldview."

The cautious, business-friendly political calculations of Clinton present a dilemma for Democrats. The party took back congress last year by drawing as stark a contrast as possible with the ruling Republican Party on the big issues of the day.

Yet the political philosophy of the Clintons, known as "triangulation," by definition aims to blur the differences between the two parties. That strategy may have worked in the 90s, thanks to Bill's superb political acumen, but it's been a disaster in the Bush era.

Wrote Chuck Todd in the Atlantic Monthly a few years back: "The habit of splitting the difference on difficult issues comes across as crassly political, more so when one lacks Clinton's unique personal charisma."

Hillary embodies Bill's poll-tested centrism without his charisma. Mark Penn, according to the Washington Post, believes that in 2008 "the electorate will want change - but not too much change."

Many voters, including virtually all Democrats, may beg to differ. After eight disastrous years of George Bush, they're likely to want as much change as they can get. Ari Berman @ CIF