The Clintons Storm Iowa [input] [input] [input] [input] [input]
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By ADAM NAGOURNEY Published: July 2, 2007
Over the next three days, the political world will be watching as Bill Clinton
makes his first campaign swing with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, starting
this evening at the State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. The questions are
interesting: How long will Mr. Clinton talk in introducing Mrs. Clinton? Will
he outshine her, as happened at the funeral of Coretta Scott King? Will Mr.
Clinton talk about President Bush, or the other Democratic presidential
candidates, or stick to talking about his wife? And will the Clintons agree to
an extended Mr.-and-Mrs. press conference? (That one is easy: Fat chance).
Their joint presence in Iowa, though, also hints at an intriguing and broader
political story playing out in the state. Mrs. Clinton is embarking on a major
effort to shore up a definite weakness in her candidacy the widespread sense,
shared by her own advisers, that she is trailing in Iowa, the state that starts
the nominating process. So it is no coincidence that Iowa is where the campaign
has chosen to deploy Mr. Clinton in a big way for the first time on her behalf.
This is not a quick drop-by. The Clintons will spend three days together in
the state. And when Mr. Clinton leaves on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton is staying
behind for another day. Her aides say they are packing her summer recess
schedule with trips to Iowa.
Why is all this necessary? Mrs. Clintons chief strategist, Mark Penn, who by
profession is a pollster and tends to be very boosterish on all things Clinton,
said that of all the early states, this is the one where Mrs. Clinton is
clearly trailing. He blames it on her not having been able to spend as much
time in Iowa as her rivals .
She is leading now in just about every other state, so this is a natural
place for us to step up our attention and focus, Mr. Penn said in an e-mail
exchange on Sunday. She is building a base there, but she is not the
frontrunner in Iowa and traditionally these voters make their final decision
late.
Indeed, Mrs. Clinton does seem vulnerable in Iowa, and its not hard to
picture a number of unwelcome scenarios for a campaign that these days is once
again trying to present her candidacy as a juggernaut. Mrs. Clinton could
probably escape losing to John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat, and coming
in second next January. Coming in third, which is not at all out of the
question analysts say, would be hard to explain by the supposed front-running
particularly if it is Senator Barack Obama of Illinois who comes in first.
First, the usual caveat: polls this early are notoriously unreliable,
especially in states like Iowa where, as Mr. Penn observed, voters have a
history of not making a decision until a few weeks before the caucus.
But anyone who has spent any time in Iowa these past few months realizes that
Mr. Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat making his second bid for the
presidency, is very, very strong here.
Iowa Democrats know him and they like him: he came in second in 2004, and has
been working here almost constantly ever since. He gets this state or, more
precisely, the Democratic caucus-going population the way few people outside
of Iowa do. (One thing to remember about the Clintons is, as huge an advantage
they from having run two presidential campaigns, he did not seriously compete
in the 1992 Iowa caucuses because Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa was in the race;
in 1996, as the incumbent, Mr. Clinton had no competition.)
Mr. Edwards draws big enthusiastic crowds wherever he goes in Iowa; and his
audience is not made up of celebrity-spotters. Mr. Edwardss whole strategy to
compete against his better-funded opponents is to win next January in Iowa, so
he is not about to let up on the gas.
That is problem No. 1 for Mrs. Clinton. The second is that Mr. Obama appears
to be doing well here as well.
Meanwhile, at least three other Democrats - - Governor Bill Richardson of New
Mexico, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware and Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut
have been campaigning aggressively here.
Even before this trip, the Clinton campaign has been taking steps to deal
with the situation. A few months ago, Mrs. Clinton upended her Iowa staff to
bring in Teresa Vilmain, one of the states best political operators, to run
her Iowa operation. Ms. Vilmain ran the successful gubernatorial campaign of
Tom Vilsack, and she had been a senior adviser to Mr. Vilsack during his
short-lived campaign for president. To the surprise of no one, the Clinton
campaign grabbed her the second Mr. Vilsack quite.
Mr. Clinton is going to be put to extensive though not always obvious use
here. All the attention will be on the splashy public events the Clintons will
be doing such as Monday night at the state fair grounds outside of Des
Moines, or the Independence Day parade they are marching in on Wednesday in
Clear Lake (sharing the parade route, interestingly enough, with Mitt Romney,
the Massachusetts Republican who is running a very strong campaign in Iowa).
But more significant is what will be taking place out of the public eye. Mr.
Clinton and Mrs. Clinton will be holding smaller meetings with undecided
Democratic activists. Those sessions are going to be closed to the press and
public. Undecided Iowa Democrats are going to find out earlier than just about
anyone what it is like to be importuned or at least charmed by a former
president to vote for his wife.
One of the most fascinating debates in politics these days is whether, given
the changes to the primary calendar, Iowa will be as important in determining a
nominee as it has been in many previous cycles. But within the Clinton
campaign, the thinking is that a win there, followed by victories in two of the
subsequent early states, New Hampshire and Florida, would make it very
difficult for Mr. Obama or anyone else to stop her going into the national
crush of primaries on Feb. 5.
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