Photo

KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Hillary Clinton’s remarks on the campaign trail a week before the Iowa caucuses are harking back to a simpler time in her candidacy: last month.

After spending the early weeks of 2016 hitting Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont as he has gained ground in polls in Iowa and surpassed her in New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton on Monday shifted to a broader — and more benign — stump speech she delivered in December that takes aim at the Republicans and praises her “esteemed” Democratic rival.

Mrs. Clinton talked about the economic successes of her husband’s administration and connected the 2008 financial crises to Republican policies. “We ended up with a balanced budget and a surplus,” she said of the Bill Clinton years. “I was proud of the economic record that was developed and passed on to the next president, who happened to be a Republican.”

“And instead of building on what works, they just began to dismantle it piece by piece,” she said. “We know what happened, don’t we? The worst financial crises since the Great Depression.”

Rather than poking at Mr. Sanders’s policies as she has done in recent weeks, Mrs. Clinton returned to an earlier theme of connecting the Republican presidential candidates of advocating a so-called trickle down economic philosophy that hurts working people.

“Everything I’ve just said the Republicans disagree with,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Every single one of them has put forward policies that would cut taxes even more on the wealthy.”

She brought up Mr. Sanders in the friendliest of terms to try to reassure caucusgoers here that she would be sufficiently tough on Wall Street. “I have the toughest, most effective plan to go after Wall Street and the financial industry of anyone running,” she said. “I have an esteemed opponent in Senator Sanders, who I really respect, and he’s made a big issue about this.”

“Senator Sanders has been very clear and passionate about breaking up the big banks,” Mrs. Clinton continued, and reminded the audience that the Dodd-Frank regulatory act allows the government to break up the major financial firms. (Mr. Sanders has pleased liberals in his calling for reinstating the 1939 Glass-Steagall Act to break up the banks, which Mrs. Clinton does not support.)

“I have said I will break them up because no bank should be too big to fail and no executive too powerful to jail, but we already have the authority,” Mrs. Clinton said.

During a question-and-answer session, a voter stood up and said, “People have never had it better since your husband was in office.”