Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday clarified her remark that businesses do not create jobs after it drew merciless criticisms with potential lasting damage ahead of her 2016 president bid from the Republican camp.

Clinton was campaigning in Boston on Friday for Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley when she raised eyebrows for saying, "Don't let anybody tell you that, you know, it's corporations and businesses that create jobs."

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Republicans immediately pounced on her remark and circulated the video clip of her speech online. America Rising PAC, a Republican group that seeks to keep the former secretary of state out of the White House, used the videotaped speech as the headline of its website.

In an address Monday at an election rally for New York Rep. Sean Maloney (D), Clinton corrected herself, citing that she had "shorthanded" her point three days before.

She said what she meant was that certain tax policies, such as tax breaks for corporations outsourcing manpower overseas, fail to create jobs at home while hurting the economy.

Clinton's original remarks echo President Barack Obama's 2012 gaffe in which he said "You didn't build that" in reference to businesses created and owned by ordinary Americans.

This became the centerpiece of his then Republican presidential opponent Mitt Romney's campaign.

Regardless of how Clinton's comment is interpreted, there is very little doubt that the GOPs will use it to derail her bid for the White House next year, The Wall Street Journal indicated.

While she has said she will announce her 2016 White House plans at the beginning of next year, she is clearly the Democrats frontrunner and has this early been making rounds of the country, shoring up support for her future presidential run and the candidates she endorses.

This is not Clinton's first gaffe ahead of her unofficial presidential campaign for 2016. When she released her "Hard Choices" memoir in June, opponents lashed at her for remarks on how she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, left Washington "dead broke" after his second term. 

TagsHillary Clinton, businesses create jobs, Hillary Clinton gaffe, Republicans, U.S. election, 2016 election, Presidential Race