Cincinnati: In a summer defined by anger over globalisation and economic inequality, Hillary Clinton made a populist pitch on Monday by firmly declaring “this is not a time for half measures” as she stood alongside her party’s liberal champion, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, to lay out an ambitious plan to lift wages and create jobs.

“I got into this race because I wanted to even the odds for people who have the odds stacked against them,” Clinton said. “To build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, we have got to go big and we have got to go bold.”

The event marked the first time the two Democrats have campaigned on stage together and is the culmination of an unlikely political alliance between Clinton, who is often associated with her husband’s centrist economic agenda, and Warren, who has assailed policies of the Bill Clinton era by tying the deregulation of Wall Street to the 2008 financial crisis.

But those differences seemed a distant memory on Monday, as Clinton and Warren echoed similar liberal themes and took the stage together united against the common enemy: Donald Trump.

Warren praised Clinton’s advocacy for families and children, saying she had “steady hands, but most of all, she has a good heart.” But she also presented the presumptive Democratic nominee as singularly suited to defeat Trump.

“She knows what it takes to defeat a thin-skinned bully who is driven by greed and hate,” said Warren, who has often been on the receiving side of Trump’s Twitter attacks. “She doesn’t whine. She doesn’t run to Twitter to call her opponents fat pigs or dummies.”

Clinton and Warren, both wearing shades of blue, grasped hands on stage in the grand corridor of the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, lined with murals of workers in the fields and on factory floors. Supporters in the crowd of over 2,000 waved “Girl Power” signs in hopes of seeing the duo together on the ticket in the fall.

While an all-female ticket is unlikely, James Hamilton, the Washington lawyer leading Clinton’s vice presidential search, has begun vetting Warren and other candidates. Ever since she endorsed Clinton this month, Warren has been a powerful surrogate, attacking Trump in spades and visiting the Clinton campaign’s headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, to encourage young staffers with a simple message: “Don’t screw this up!”

In an address that addressed “the anxiety, the fear and, yes, the anger” over an economy in which the wealthiest Americans have thrived as middle-class wages have remained virtually stagnant, Clinton struck many of the same notes, hitting themes that elevated Warren in the Senate and fuelled the candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the hard-fought Democratic nominating contest.

Clinton said that when Warren railed against Wall Street and corporate excesses from her perch in the Senate “she is speaking for all of us.”

In this battleground state with inordinate weight on general elections, Clinton delivered a forceful promise to strengthen labour unions, close loopholes that give corporations to tax breaks for moving jobs overseas, raise the minimum wage and make college affordable.

“How did the richest Americans and biggest corporations get away with manipulating the tax code?” Clinton asked to boos from the crowd.

Both women framed their remarks on Monday by portraying Trump as a selfish corporate titan whose business record hasn’t benefited American workers.

Clinton ticked off a laundry list of little-known Trump enterprises. “Trump suits were made in Mexico,” she said. “Trump furniture is made in Turkey, instead of Cleveland. Trump barware is made in Slovenia, instead of Toledo.”

Living up to her newfound reputation as Trump slayer-in-chief, Warren roused the crowd with criticism of the real estate developer, delivered in her characteristically folksy, but powerful style. “He will crush you into the dirt to get whatever he wants. That’s who he is,” Warren said.

With Sanders not yet ready to campaign for his primary opponent (while saying he would vote for her to defeat Trump), Clinton’s rally with Warren could help win over the liberal voters who flocked to Sanders’ message.

Some 45 per cent of Sanders’ supporters now have a positive view of Clinton, according to an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll.

He recently responded “yes” when asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” if he would vote for Clinton, but he did not exactly offer a glowing endorsement of her policy positions. “The issue right here is, I’m going to do everything I can do to defeat Donald Trump,” Sanders said.