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One senior banker, who has long supported Mrs. Clinton, said: "The reality is that she might have to tack left a little for the party. What I don't know is whether she will stay there or double back."

Read MoreMark Cuban to GOP: Forget the social issues

Another banker said of her comment: "I doubt she meant that."

Ari Fleischer, a press secretary for President George W. Bush, took to Twitter: "Sometimes you have to wonder if Hillary really believes in anything, except appealing to whatever is current. Iraq war? Yes. Business? No."

While Mrs. Clinton has yet to declare that she is running for president in 2016, she is widely seen as the presumptive Democratic nominee, and an army of Wall Street bankers has been angling for roles in her campaign in hopes of clinching spots in her administration. (Another set of bankers is cozying up to Jeb Bush in hopes that he runs on the Republican ticket.)

A series of right-leaning blogs trumpeted Mrs. Clinton's comments over the weekend, seemingly as a way of highlighting the inconsistency in some of her positions.

What Mrs. Clinton's supporters within the business world want to know is whether she plans to govern the way her husband did as a moderate, center-left president or whether she will be pressed to take more so-called progressive stancescode for anti-business within the business worldas the Democratic Party, in the wake of the financial crisis, appears to have shifted leftward since Mr. Clinton left office.

Mr. Clinton, whose Clinton Global Initiative and other ties to business have made him appear friendlier to the financial world, found himself offending some of the Democratic base when he appeared to sympathize with corporations seeking to reincorporate overseas to lower their tax rates in so-called inversion deals. "Like it or not, this inversion, this is their money," he said.

On Monday at a campaign rally in New York, Mrs. Clinton said she had misspoken.

"I shorthanded this point the other day, so let me be absolutely clear about what I've been saying for a couple of decades," Mrs. Clinton said.

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Hillary Clinton, Street friend or foe?

"It doesn't seem to me that Wall Street is too focused on the comments that possible Democratic or Republican general election candidates are making at these local, midterm election events in places like Minnesota, Iowa or Massachusetts," he said.

"Thus, I certainly do not think anyone is extrapolating Secretary Clinton's or anyone else's remarks as her or his national agenda. We all know that the hotly debated topics of today will unlikely be the key ones a year from now."

Clinton's recent moves do not suggest any big policy shift. Warren recently softened her disavowals of a presidential run, increasing pressure on the former first lady to appeal to the Massachusetts senator's vocal constituency, which is desperate for further crackdowns on banks and more progressive tax policy.

Watch More: Rep. Portman's 2016 decision

What the moves do show is that Clinton is not great on the stump and is pretty bad at going left. These problems helped sink Clinton's campaign in 2008 when Obama caught fire with progressives with his soaring rhetoric and his consistent opposition to the Iraq War.

A 2016 campaign will be quite different, of course. There is no Barack Obama on the horizon. Even Warren, if she runs, would be very unlikely to defeat Clinton in the primaries, though she might get close or even win an early state or two.

But Clinton's deficiencies as a politician could prove far more damaging in a general election campaign, especially if Republicans nominate a candidate with broad national appeal who can compete in swing states like Ohio and Florida.

Right now it looks like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, should he get in, would be the most likely candidate to take advantage of a weak Clinton campaign. But even one of the other Republicans considering a run such as Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., or Marco Rubio, R-Fla., could wind up displaying superior political skills and denying Clinton the White House.

Read More Will all the midterm ad spending matter?

The main takeaway here is not that Clinton is going to run as a pitchfork-wielding, fire-breathing scourge of the banks. That's not going to happen. It's that she has to step up her campaign game in a major way to make it to the Oval Office.

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Will Hillary Clinton tout anti-bank regulations?

"It doesn't seem to me that Wall Street is too focused on the comments that possible Democratic or Republican general election candidates are making at these local, midterm election events in places like Minnesota, Iowa or Massachusetts," he said.

"Thus, I certainly do not think anyone is extrapolating Secretary Clinton's or anyone else's remarks as her or his national agenda. We all know that the hotly debated topics of today will unlikely be the key ones a year from now."

Clinton's recent moves do not suggest any big policy shift. Warren recently softened her disavowals of a presidential run, increasing pressure on the former first lady to appeal to the Massachusetts senator's vocal constituency, which is desperate for further crackdowns on banks and more progressive tax policy.

Watch More: Rep. Portman's 2016 decision

What the moves do show is that Clinton is not great on the stump and is pretty bad at going left. These problems helped sink Clinton's campaign in 2008 when Obama caught fire with progressives with his soaring rhetoric and his consistent opposition to the Iraq War.

A 2016 campaign will be quite different, of course. There is no Barack Obama on the horizon. Even Warren, if she runs, would be very unlikely to defeat Clinton in the primaries, though she might get close or even win an early state or two.

But Clinton's deficiencies as a politician could prove far more damaging in a general election campaign, especially if Republicans nominate a candidate with broad national appeal who can compete in swing states like Ohio and Florida.

Right now it looks like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, should he get in, would be the most likely candidate to take advantage of a weak Clinton campaign. But even one of the other Republicans considering a run such as Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., or Marco Rubio, R-Fla., could wind up displaying superior political skills and denying Clinton the White House.

Read More Will all the midterm ad spending matter?

The main takeaway here is not that Clinton is going to run as a pitchfork-wielding, fire-breathing scourge of the banks. That's not going to happen. It's that she has to step up her campaign game in a major way to make it to the Oval Office.

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Wall St. eyes Hillary Clinton messages

Hillary Clinton on Monday mopped up her botched statement from a rally in Massachusetts last week, making it clear shed misspoken and hadnt intended to deliver a fresh economic policy message.

Clintons cleanup came as she campaigned with Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in Somers, about 90 minutes north of New York City, after two days in which Republicans bandied the likely White House candidates Friday comment, made in the context of talking about trickle-down economics, on social media and the single sentence began gaining traction.

Dont let anybody tell you that corporations and businesses create jobs, Clinton had said at the rally in Boston, where she appeared on behalf of gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley along with Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a populist, anti-Big Banks crusader who has become the wished-for candidate from some progressives for 2016.

(POLITICO's 2014 race ratings)

A Clinton aide later said the former secretary of state had meant to talk about tax breaks for corporations and businesses in that sentence, which led into a line about how trickle-down economics had failed spectacularly a sentiment she has long held. The overall context was clear that she had left words out of a sentence; the comment made little sense without it.

But some Democrats who back Clinton said privately she appeared to be trying too hard to capture the Warren rhetoric and adjust to the modern economic progressive language much in the way President Barack Obama did during a campaign rally in 2012, when, discussing businesses relationships to the infrastructure of cities, he said, You didnt build that.

And it highlighted a problem that has plagued Clinton in the past: overshooting in her language when she is outside her immediate comfort zone.

(Full 2014 election results)

In Somers on Monday, Clinton wrapped the discussion about trickle-down economics into one about the minimum wage, an issue Democrats across the country have discussed in stump speeches.

Trickle down economics has failed. I short-handed this point the other day, so let me be absolutely clear about what Ive been saying for a couple of decades, she said. 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 and the middle out not when we hand out tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs or stash their profits overseas.

Continued here:
Hillary Clinton clarifies jobs comment

The former secretary of state has sometimes struggled to connect with voters on the stump. Maybe 140 characters suit her better.

Texts From Hillary's Adam Smith and Stacey Lambe with Hillary Clinton (Courtesy of Adam Smith )

Since she entered the national spotlight more than 20 years ago, Hillary Clinton has struggled to connect with voters the way great politicians often dolook no further than her husband for a prime example of the dynamic, American pol. Well, Hillary has finally found a way off showing her softer side: Twitter.

In April 2012, a black-and-white picture of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sitting in a military plane, wearing sunglasses, and holding her BlackBerry went viral thanks to a Tumblr account called Texts from Hillary. The account, which was shared over 82,000 times on Facebook in one week, features the now-famous picture of the former first lady exchanging snarky text messages with celebrities ranging from Barack Obama to Meryl Streep.

"Brunch?" asks Meryl Streep. "Obviously," a stone-faced Hillary replies.

The main joke of Texts from Hillary is that the hard-edged, no-nonsense, steely-faced Clinton is the only adult in a world of celebrity toddlers. While we're laughing at the idea that Hillary Clinton actually texts with celebs, we're also laughing at the general incompetence of the people she's texting with. In this sense, Texts From Hillary managed to take had been one of Clinton's greatest weaknessesher wooden, stern personaand turn it into something positive and endearing: her no-nonsense competence and authority.

"She's going to love the new Justin Bieber video!" says a casually dressed Joe Biden, flanked by a smiling Barack Obama. "Back to work boys," Hillary replies.

The Texts From Hillary meme inspired national coverage, including a column by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and articles in multiple other publications, from The Washington Post to BuzzFeed to CNN. Hillary even invited the Tumblr's creators, Adam Smith and Stacy Lambeboth communications professionals in Washington, D.C.to the State Department, where she put on her signature sunglasses and snapped a picture with the pair. The Internet was laughing, and Hillary Clinton was finally in on the joke.

Shortly after Texts From Hillary blew up, Talking Points Memo's Benjy Sarlin wrote about the impact it had on reinventing Clinton's wooden public persona:

When she was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton was parodied as drab and calculated, especially compared with young and vigorous Barack Obama and winking and fresh-faced Sarah Palin. Now, she's fueling Internet jokes based on her own brand of badass cool.

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Can Twitter Solve Hillary Clinton's Relatability Problem?