Two points about Hillary's latest gaffe, "Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs." First, it wasn't a gaffe--not from an economic angle. Consumers create jobs; businesses merely expand their workforce to accommodate consumers' demand. Government can--and should--also create jobs, in the absence of demand. During economic downturns, it pumps cash (well, it's supposed to) into a new labor force's pockets (via infrastructure projects, for example). That cash the new labor force then spends. Businesses reap the rewards and then hire, as noted, to accommodate future demand; additional hiring brings more cash and demand into private markets, and recovery ensues. The essential point is that business is reactive, while consumers and government are (though I detest this word) proactive. It's all quite straightforward.
Why Hillary didn't just say that in her clean-up comments--"I short-handed this point the other day, so let me be absolutely clear about what I’ve been saying for a couple of 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 and the middle out"--is beyond me. But, that's Hillary.
The second point is that, barring some catastrophe, the presidential electoral map immunizes Hillary--or any other Democratic nominee (one hopes)--from most any political gaffe, which, admittedly, her "businesses [don't] create jobs" remark was. The Romney campaign and the right's usual media suspects pounded Obama in 2012 for his Hillary-like comment--taken out of context, of course--"You didn't build that." But the pounding had no effect. The president's polling remained stable and it was clear for weeks before the election that Obama would win--because the electoral map was, and is, 51 percent blue, and will probably be even bluer by 2016. What's a gaffe here and there compared to lopsided polarization?