Pittsburgh — SINCE their premiere on the national stage a quarter-century ago, Hillary and Bill Clinton have been the closest of partners in politics. Through some rocky times they have turned to each other on vital projects, as in 1993, when Mr. Clinton asked his wife to lead an ultimately failed effort to establish universal health care. And then last week, Mrs. Clinton, her campaign straining to build momentum, said that her husband would be “in charge of revitalizing the economy” in a second Clinton White House.

With that announcement, Mrs. Clinton underscored that the couple had partnered in another joint venture: trying to refurbish Clintonism, the political creed that defined his two terms as president.

Celebrated by its supporters as a synonym for peace, prosperity and a common-sense centrism, Clintonism was — and is still — derided by its detractors on the left as corporatism and on the right as a shorthand for scandal and impeachable offenses. As Mrs. Clinton tries to unite her fractious party and turn her focus to Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, she is also looking to what can be salvaged and what must be discarded from her husband’s legacy.

What, then, might Clintonism 2.0 look like?

In its original form, Clintonism was an effort to pull the Democratic Party — which had lost five of the six presidential elections between 1968 and 1988 — back into political relevance. Forged out of Mr. Clinton’s years as governor of Arkansas, it involved more than just tweaking Democratic orthodoxy. Mr. Clinton wanted to help big corporations thrive, favored trade policies that unions loathed and spoke of reining in welfare and fighting crime.