IowaPolitics.com BlogWatch

On January 3, 2008, roughly 240,000 Iowans attended Democratic precinct caucuses, and at least 90,000 of them ended up in Barack Obama's corner. However we felt about Obama during the primaries or the general election campaign, whatever we think about his substantive and symbolic actions since the election, we can all agree that he would not be taking the oath of office tomorrow if Iowa caucus-goers had put him in third place, or even a distant second. I started writing this diary several times last year. I kept abandoning it because emotions were so raw on Democratic blogs that I felt the piece would only ignite a flamewar. Since more than a year has passed, I decided to try one more time. I do not mean to start an argument or pretend that I have all the answers. I just enjoy thinking about counterfactual history. ... When I asked former staffers and volunteers an open-ended question about what might have changed the outcome in Iowa, nine times out of ten the first thing people brought up was the failure to anticipate how large the voter universe would be. Howard Dean's new-voter strategy had flopped, and most experienced hands assumed that Obama's would fail too.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, John_Edwards

When I first heard the rumblings about Obama possibly picking Hillary
for Secretary of State, I wasn't sure what to make of it. One side of
me thought that perhaps she leaked this story because she actually
wanted the job. The other side of me thought that perhaps she leaked
the story when Obama really had no intention of picking her, just to
make Obama look bad when he didn't pick her in an effort to gain
sympathy which might help her in future political endeavors. Either
way, I was pretty sure that she leaked the story. But, now it looks
like Hillary really did want the job after all. The mainstream media
is reporting that the official announcement will come today. I'm not
really sure why Hillary wants to do this. You have to think that every
skeleton in the Clintons' closet is going to be dragged out all over
again.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

It's been reported that Barack Obama picked Joe Biden as his VP
because Joe is supposedly a smart guy, politically savvy and a man
with foreign policy know how. Well if a recent campaign stop is any
indication, Joe is not nearly as good as advertised. Biden defended
Hillary Clinton, saying to the crowd of supporters: "She's a truly
close personal friend and she is qualified to be president of the
United States of America, she's easily qualified to be vice president
of the United States of America and quite frankly it might have been a
better pick than me." Sticking up for a colleague in the U.S. Senate
is one thing, but saying that Barack Obama could have picked someone
better then him as a running mate? That's just plain dumb.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, Joe_Biden

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a person that tends to draw strong emotions
from other people. While I realize I'm painting with a wide brush
(something I find to be a rather scary practice), the sense I have
from 18 months of election commotion is that people tend to have warm
feelings toward the former first lady or they tend to view her with
skepticism. I don't believe, however, that these personal perceptions
of the woman will be the subject of discourse in 20 or 30 years. While
the discussions about the Clinton campaign ranging from the leaked
memo about skipping the Iowa caucuses to the possible stumbles heading
into to Super Tuesday will no doubt go on for a few years, the
historical and more lofty conversation will one day turn to the
incredible contributions Clinton has made to all women who aspire to
hold public office.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

As you all know by now I'm a partisan hack, but I give credit where
credit is due, and Hillary Clinton's speech last night was a homerun…
for her, not Obama. I have never seen Hillary deliver such a
performance. I was impressed and was left telling myself thank God the
Democrats didn't nominate her, and secondly why the hell isn't she on
the ticket? Oh that's right because she is married to Bill. Speaking
of Bill, he gives a prime time speech tomorrow. So let's see if I have
this right, night one was all about making the Obama's into the
Huxtables. Night two is all about Hillary. Night three will be all
about Bill, unless Biden says something stupid, which leaves Obama
with only one night where he is the focus of the convention. Someone
should be fired for that.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Bill_Clinton, Hillary_Clinton

Recent history indicates that the Democrats have been successful at
one thing: losing presidential elections. As Americans face the
prospects of never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an economy
that has tanked, the foreclosure crisis, health care costs still
growing exponentially in relation to inflation, and myriad other
indicators that spell out political D-O-O-M for the incumbent's party,
this year's presidential election is the Democrat's to lose. But don't
underestimate the Democratic Party, which has been saddled with the
historic curse of losing the presidency to George W. Bush not once,
but twice. When in doubt, leave it to the Democrats to snatch defeat
from the jaws of victory.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

A top aide to Hillary Clinton says if revelations about John Edwards'
extramarital affair had come out before the Iowa caucuses, Hillary
Clinton would be the presumptive nominee today. That's impossible to
definitively answer, of course. But a caucus night survey indicates
that most Edwards caucus goers had a second choice other than Clinton,
and his absence would likely have meant a bigger Iowa win for Barack
Obama. "I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would
therefore have been the nominee," if Edwards had dropped out before
Iowa, former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABC
News.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, John_Edwards

The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Nomination Committee is
preparing to meet in Washington Saturday to decide the fate of
calendar cheaters Florida and Michigan. Most observers are instead
expecting delegates from the two states to be seated with a half vote
each, though there's several variations on that theme. One thing the
committee won't settle is the debate on how to define the popular
vote. How much of the Michigan and Florida fight about the delegates,
at half or full strength, and how much is about popular vote claims?
If the two states are seated in any way based on the too-early
primaries, the votes "counted." "Count all the votes" is Hillary
Clinton's mantra, as she claims a popular vote lead in an effort to
persuade superdelegates. But the formulas that show Clinton in the
lead don't count all the votes -- and Iowa is among the states
excluded.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, voting

Democratic front-runner Barack Obama stood on an Iowa stage Tuesday
night, delivering a rousing speech to a big crowd at a big moment.
Nice visual, but Iowans have seen it before. His rival, Hillary
Clinton, was also still standing a few states away, passionately
fanning her flickering hopes to win the nomination with a forceful
speech in Kentucky, where she vowed to fight and scrap for every last
vote. That was something Iowans didn't see before January's crucial
caucuses, which Obama won in a stunning upset. You have to wonder, if
the twofisted Hillary of May had replaced the cautious Hillary of
January, whether things might have been different.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

A little more than two weeks before the Democratic primary in Iowa's
third Congressional district, Ed Fallon has challenged Congressman
Leonard Boswell to shift his support as a superdelegate from Hillary
Clinton to Barack Obama. It's a shrewd move for several reasons.
First, Iowa's third district went for Obama in January, as yesterday's
press release from Fallon underscores: "Fallon says, 'Even though
Hillary Clinton finished behind Barack Obama and John Edwards in the
Third Congressional District, Congressman Boswell continues to ignore
the will of the majority by saying he will cast his superdelegate vote
for Clinton.' ... As I've written before, Fallon yard signs are often
seen in the same yards as the Obama "HOPE" signs, while Boswell's yard
signs are frequently paired with Hillary signs.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Ed_Fallon, Hillary_Clinton, Leonard_Boswell

From the earliest days of the campaign, the race for the 2008
Democratic presidential nomination has been a hard fought,
neck-and-neck struggle. But now, as the race enters its final stretch,
it has become increasingly obvious that the eventual outcome is no
longer in doubt. With a difficult general election looming, Democrats
need to put our family squabbles aside and unite behind the eventual
nominee. And so, in the interest of Party unity, and his own health, I
am calling on Senator Obama to gracefully accept defeat. First, let me
congratulate Senator Obama and his staff for running a tough campaign.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

West Virginia votes today in the first of what may reasonably be
called the Footnote Primaries of the Democratic nomination process.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that the voters of West Virginia,
Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota and Puerto Rico don't matter,
or that the outcomes in these primaries will not be important; far
from it. But the importance of these primaries now lies not in their
potential to determine the party's nominee - that question was
(finally) settled in Barack Obama's favor last week by North Carolina
and Indiana - but rather in shaping the end of the campaign and taking
a big role in determining the conditions under which the Democratic
Party begins its general election campaign.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

The audience in King's Chapel on the campus of Cornell College in
Mount Vernon seemed to hold its collective breath Thursday night as
George Stephanopoulos gave voice to words about the Democratic
presidential nomination process that most in the nation have been
impatiently waiting to hear: "The race is over." The same quiet
audience emitted whoops of joy a few minutes later when Stephanopoulos
said that Iowa's position as the first-in-the-nation caucus state
would continue. "I want to tell you that I do think this race -- the
Democratic race -- is over," Stephanopoulos said. "Tuesday night was a
decisive tipping point. Mathematically it is simply not possible for
Sen. [Hillary Rodham] Clinton to catch Sen. [Barack] Obama in the
elected delegates."

Labels: Barack_Obama, caucus dates, Hillary_Clinton

Barack Obama won a decisive victory in North Carolina by slightly less
than 230,000 votes last night and Hillary Clinton has won in Indiana
by slightly more than 22,000 votes, so where does it leave things? If
the statements of the candidates count for anything, it looks like
more of the same all the way to the convention. The sad thing is that
there is no legitimate way for either candidate to win the nomination
outright without the influence of the superdelegates who may be more
likely to use "electability" as determined by polling to affect their
decision-making. As a John Edwards supporter, we learned first hand
that electability as measured by polls is hardly reliable.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

With a whopping 46 contests behind us, Senator Obama is now a mere 276
delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination. Tonight, as
the polls close, we will hear candidates, campaign staff, surrogates,
newspeople, pundits, and so on, ask (and answer) all sorts of
questions. There is, however, only one serious question today: Can
HRC make serious inroads in the delegate race? Possibly, she can. HRC
clearly has the support of the political establishment in both IN and
NC. In the Hoosier State, Senator Bayh -- scion of IN's most powerful
political family -- has been by her side at every stop. Same in North
Carolina, where Governor Easley has campaigned extremely hard for her.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

I'm sitting here blogging from my favorite Des Moines, Iowa
breakfast/free wi fi place, The Gateway Market. I ran into a couple of
good friends of mine, Ross and Amy Daniels, who are Obama supporters.
I reminded them that Obama people need to quit being so negative
against Sen. Hillary Clinton and start showing some respect. When I
"confronted" him, Ross was speechless. He had that smug "but, but,
we're right and she's wrong" look that many Obamicans have. Amy looked
at me sheepishly and said, "I plan to be a party girl." Good for her.
Here's the deal, Democrats. We're all on the same train together.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

"The headline out of Iowa is going to be 'Obama gains one,'" I told my
fellow delegates during casual conversations in the hours of down time
at Saturday's 2nd Congressional District Democratic convention. So
when I finally got home, and could access the national political blogs
that for some reason the Mount Vernon School District's wireless
network had blocked, what did I read? "Obama loses one." It's the
latest example of national political writers just not understanding
Iowa's caucus and convention process. On Thursday, I published a
comprehensive look at the math that showed Obama taking 15 delegates,
Clinton winning nine, and Edwards definitely getting two, with three
delegates still in play, and one more delegate possibly shifting
pending deals between candidates.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, IDP

Attendance, Tactics Will Shape Results… They say half the game is just
showing up, and that's true for Iowa's Democratic congressional
district conventions. The other half may be tactical politics, as
supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama try to deny the other
campaign any advantage. The most important factors in determining how
many national delegates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and, yes,
former candidate John Edwards get on Saturday will be which campaign
does the best job of getting its share of the 2,500 delegates to
travel to the conventions, and who can quietly cut the best deals. A
district-by-district review of the delegate totals shows that three of
the 29 national delegate seats to be elected Saturday are up for
grabs.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, IDP

I hear the constant refrain from the Clinton and Obama campaigns that
John McCain can't be allowed to win, because that will be just 4 more
years of the Bush Administration. It's not an implausible argument,
given that McCain has started to repudiate some of his past views on
taxes, for example. However … this is focusing purely on political
issues. Now, I'm not downplaying the importance of issues, since for
many people, such things as Supreme Court appointments, tax policy,
Iraq, and so on are key points. But I can't escape feeling that on a
procedural level, the candidate who would represent 4 more years of
the Bush Administration is ... Hillary Clinton. How can I say that?
Let me explain.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, John_McCain

Shell and Pea Game Takes Eyes Off Prize... Here are some thoughts to
ponder as we await this evening's results from Pennsylvania where the
polls will close at 8:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. CT. Up to now the focus has
been on whether Senator Obama or Senator Clinton has the most "pledged
delegates" -- plus those "super-delegates" leaning in their favor (or
publicly committed to them). Some talk about the popular vote totals
of each. Occasionally there's mention of how many states each has won.
(These numbers change from day to day, but so far Obama wins the
trifecta. He has about 150 more delegates, 700,000 more popular votes,
and roughly 27 to her 14 states.)

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

Where did Hillary's inevitable coronation become a donnybrook? Her
stately campaign-march to Denver an anything-goes Mad Max
fender-bender? Her unquestioned entitlement an increasingly impossible
slog through Obama lands? It's Iowa.... Iowa.... as in "Where did the
tables turn?" where Roger Simon of Politico autopsies Hillary
Clinton's presidential campaign. As Simon dissects the remains of
Hillary's once unassailable nomination, he names the main cause of the
demise of her White House hopes, "Iowa is where Clinton needed to
strangle the Barack Obama campaign in its crib."

Labels: Barack_Obama, caucus, Hillary_Clinton

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Barack Obama pulling with six points
of Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania with Clinton losing support among
women. A surprise win puts the race away from Obama. There are those
that argue that it is already impossible for Hillary to win the race.
I believe she is staying in because either 1) she has an internal
strategy to win that her people are NOT sharing with the press. 2) she
believes that there are unreported controversies still out there that
will derail Obama. What internal strategy? The Clinton campaign won't
say and they certainly are not telling the press.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

Lots of Siouxlanders had fond memories of seeing Democratic
prsidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the Sioux City Art Center on
Jan. 1. Art center director Al Harris-Fernandez, on the other hand,
had a bill he was trying for weeks to collect from the appearance.
Clinton appeared before an estimated 700 people on New Year's Day,
trying to nab more supporters before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. The
cost for the venue was $3,400 - $2,400 for the typical rental fee,
plus $1,000 more because Clinton's event ran long. Her Sioux City
campaign office closed shortly after the caucuses, so Harris-Fernandez
left phone messages and sent faxes trying to get payment.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

The two Democratic candidates still fighting for their party's
presidential nomination have sent email messages to supporters in
Iowa. The subject? This coming Saturday's county conventions. The
dynamic here is that delegates are to be elected at these shindigs,
and the Clinton camp would dearly like to be able to pick up a few
delegates here and there around Iowa's 99 counties. (Follow the link
and find Newsweek article in which Clinton is quoted talking about how
already "pledged" delegates may not be, well, pledged.) Compare and
contrast the two email messages from the campaigns after the jump. The
Obama campaign sent out an email on Friday afternoon, March 7, 2008,
with a link directing supporters to Obama's still functioning Iowa
campaign website which contains very detailed information about the
county conventions.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

Someday, Iowans may look back on the election returns from March 4, 2008, and remember that as the day the caucuses died. It's as if at each step of the way, at each opportunity for Barack Obama to clinch the nomination, Democrats are saying," no, we want more time, we want everyone to have their say." The price of peace in this dead-heat battle may be comprehensive nomination reform. The living room meet-and-greets of Iowa tradition may vanish, replaced by tarmac rallies at the Des Moines Airport. The Obama-Clinton fight may go down as the Florida 2000 of nomination politics, with the margin of victory smaller than the margin of error.

Labels: Barack_Obama, caucus, Hillary_Clinton

Obama admits American decline is his foreign policy objective; Hillary starts a trade war... The Drama of Obama literally just said that it was his goal to change
foreign policy to reflect an America that didn't think it was better
than other countries. While refreshingly candid, it is most
disconcerting that a man who could become President of the United
States denies the concept of American exceptionalism as a both an
ideological and factual premise of our relationship with the rest of
the world. Even more frightening, the crowd went wild. Not to be
outdone, Hillary then said that she would take a "trade time out", and
said it in the context of stopping American international trade to
"evaluate what works".

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

One of the many reasons I supported John Edwards was that I thought he would expand the map for Democrats in the general election. I thought he would hold all of the Kerry states, adding Iowa and Ohio with ease, and would make things competitive in several other places too (like Missouri). I think Clinton or Obama could beat McCain or lose to him. Clinton's winning scenario is obvious: turn out record numbers of women and Latinos, rack up a big lead among seniors, thereby holding most if not all of the Kerry states and adding Florida and/or Ohio. ... Obama's winning electoral vote scenario is less certain for me. Although nationwide polls show him doing slightly better against McCain than Clinton, he runs behind Clinton against McCain in several key states

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, John_McCain

The Presidential candidates have long since left town, but at least one person (or at least her campaign) forgot to take care of something. She apparently didn't pay her bills. We're hearing Hillary Clinton has been a little tardy in that area. Top Job Services, a cleaning company in West Des Moines, said the campaign stiffed him for $7561 (that includes service and late fees) for cleaning both Clinton campaign offices in Des Moines over three months. ... The campaign called Reese again Monday and said the check had been mailed. Reese told us he never had any similar problems with Chris Dodd's campaign. In fact, he told us he cleaned Dodd's office, as well as the home the Dodds rented in Des Moines. Dodd's campaign paid him promptly, he said. He added that whenever he went to the Dodds' temporary home t0 clean, Jackie Dodd always had a check on a counter waiting for him.

Labels: Chris_Dodd, Hillary_Clinton

Senator Tom Harkin talked with Iowa reporters by phone this morning. Here's the roughly two-and-a-half minute mp3/audio file of his commentary on the Clinton campaign. Here Harkin is transcribed: "Well, I agree with our chairman Howard Dean. I sure hope this gets settled before we go to convention. That'd be very late. That'd be at the end of August. We've never had anything that late before we've had a candidate. So I don't know, I think, you know, looking at Super Tuesday, things came out pretty even. Now, again, I'm not a real expert in this but just listening to the pundits and sort of reading what I can on it it looks as though the calendar for this month favors Obama."

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, Tom_Harkin

It appears delegate counting is a new pastime in America these days. Iowa Democrats, like their counterparts in other state parties, have a group of so-called "super" delegates to their party's national convention who get to cast their votes in Denver. How will those 11 folks vote? Governor Chet Culver is at the top of the list of super delegates from Iowa. He confirmed during a recent appearance on Iowa Public Television that he was being lobbied by both the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama camps, but he is not ready to announce a preference. Culver's wife, Mari, endorsed John Edwards in December at a rally in Des Moines. Senator Tom Harkin is a super delegate. Harkin stayed out of the endorsement game before Iowa's 2008 Caucuses and has not indicated a preference between Clinton or Obama at this point.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Chet_Culver, Hillary_Clinton, IDP

... an Iowa City member of the Democratic rules committee that unseated (Florida's) delegates told Iowa Independent that Hillary Clinton's recent comments on Florida are "not helpful" to the process. Sarah Swisher, first vice chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, serves on the Democratic National Committee's rules committee. ... "It's not helpful when you have candidates express themselves in direct conflict to rulings by the DNC," said Swisher. "It's helpful for those participating in the nomination process to adhere to the rules of the party." "We didn't see any letters of support for Florida months ago," said Swisher.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Hillary Clinton is in a quandary when it comes to beating back a
fierce challenge from Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential
nomination. The talk of political activists has been the nasty,
personal tone of the recent campaign exchange between Clinton and
Obama -- as they bitterly battle over truth and consistency. The
exchange ultimately damages Clinton more than Obama in the upcoming
general election. First, Hillary's style is beginning to evoke
memories of the "burn the villages and salt the fields" campaigning
style of the Clinton machine of the 90s. With the voters demanding
change, and frustrated over what they feel is a unresponsive
government, I am doubtful voters will want to go "back to the future"
with another dose of a Clinton-Clinton White House.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

Anyone heard Hillary Clinton complaining about the caucus process
since she, maybe, won Nevada? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Maybe
process matters less than result -- or location. The relative
bumpiness of the first-ever Nevada caucuses, where the candidates
can't even agree on who won, makes a counter-intuitive good case for
Iowa's process and first place. The neighborhood meeting process is
part of what's important about Iowa, sure. But what's more important
is the nature of Iowa: established, rooted, and civically engaged. The
political upside of our slow growth is an electorate which knows its
way around the block.

Labels: caucus, Hillary_Clinton

A day after former and current South Dakota U.S. Sens. Tim Johnson and
Tom Daschle endorsed presidential candidate Barack Obama, and after
today's endorsement of Obama by John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic Party
presidential candidate, and the dropout from the race by Bill
Richardson, for the second consecutive day I'm more interested in a
political conversation with a Northwest Iowan. A Democrat was still
trying - as I am - to piece together how Hillary Clinton was able to
catch lightning in a bottle and win the New Hampshire primary two days
ago. Her all-but-certain second place finish was detailed in polls,
but there Clinton was at the end of the day, with a 39-37 percent
victory over Obama.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

Hillary Clinton has been fighting a silent battle throughout this
entire presidential primary. So far, the fact that she is female has
been behind most of the attacks on her character and appearance. Even
Clinton's handlers disagreed among themselves as to how she should
portray herself to her supporters and the media. I can think of
several times at which her femaleness was thrust front and center. The
question about whether she prefers diamonds or pearls at a debate. The
story about Clinton's cleavage showing on the Senate floor. The story
of her choking up in New Hampshire.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Hillary Clinton ran the campaign she should have run in Iowa. Less scripted, more questions, shorter, less wonky speeches. Taking more chances -- beceuse she HAD to. If she had run that campaign here, she might not have won (there's still substantive stuff like the refusal to apologize for the war vote) but she could have been a strong second. The "tears" thing was probably as calculated as the stage-managed Iowa campaign; notice that even in the middle of it she managed to get the "experience" message out. But whether it was real or not, it had some truthiness to it. She proved that she could do the retail thing -- at least for a long weekend.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Despite death rattles on the blogosphere, Hillary Clinton's campaign rolls on after a stunning comeback in New Hampshire over Barack Obama. Despite trailing in the polls by 9%, team Clinton showed why they are still the campaign to beat. With 99% of the precincts counted, it was Clinton 39%, Obama 37%, Edwards 17%, Richardson 5%, and Kucinich 1%. As predicted, the storyline is now Clinton is comeback kid II. Said Clinton, "I want, especially, to thank New Hampshire. Over the last week, I listened to you and in the process I found my own voice. I felt like we all spoke from our hearts and I am so gratified that you responded. Now together, let's give America the kind of comeback that New Hampshire has just given me."

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, John_McCain

Hillary's continual attacks on Iowa and the Caucus process in the wake of her crushing defeat show how really shallow and supercilious is her campaign. For the better part of 16 years we watched the Clinton's preposterous lies and distortions fly, usually without much critique from the poodles of truth in the national media ("I didn't inhale"; "I never had sex with that woman, not one single time"; "Serbia threatened the United States", etc...). On Thursday night Evita blamed the absence of people in Iraq for her loss as if the public thinks she was popular with guys and gals in uniform). Yesterday, it was the disenfranchisement of night shift workers that deprived Hill of her inevitable victory in the Iowa Caucus, which concedes our theory about her lineal descent from Vlad Tepes and the Draculesti but hardly explains a nine point Caucus loss.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Hillary Clinton wrapped up a New Year's Day of Iowa campaigning with a
rally for about 500 in downtown Iowa City. It's 9:20 and if I'm gonna
pay 10 bucks for a connection I'm gonna liveblog. The staffer is
stretching for time with a Hillary trivia contest. The downstairs
Sheraton ballroom is full with about 500. I'm attempting to start a
rumor that the rally is being moved outside to the Ped Mall, but no
one's biting. The TURN UP THE HEAT signs are welcome on this cold
night. Are Iowans spoiled by all this attention?

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

...and anyone asks me how she did it, I will point them to this recent
article in the New York Times. Yes, Hillary's got a lot of advantages:
she raised a ton of money, she's hired a huge Iowa staff
(approximately 400 people), she's got a former two-term governor and
former two-term president campaigning for her. But there are smart
ways and dumb ways to spend money. Reading this article, I was
impressed with some of her campaign's tactics. We Iowans joke about
how there's always a presidential candidate willing to pour us coffee,
take out the trash and shovel our snow. But Hillary's precinct
captains really are going to shovel snow for her supporters.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

We already know Rudy Giuliani likely won't be in Iowa caucus night. In
fact, according to his schedule he's already done with the Hawkeye
State. Anything to do with his ever-declining poll numbers here? But
what about Hillary Clinton? Her Midwest Co-Chair, Jerry Crawford, told
me she would not be here caucus night. He said she needs to get to New
Hampshire. But a campaign spokesman, Mark Daley, told me he thought
she would be here that night. What's the story? Sunday morning, I had
the rare chance to sit down with her to ask for myself.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

As January 3rd approaches, the campaign becomes quite simply about turn-out. Experienced campaign advisers try to cover all the bases...that's why Hillary's campaign is breaking out the shovels. Mrs. Clinton's office here is filled with hundreds of new green snow shovels that were being strategically distributed on Saturday to precinct captains to clear the walks of older women who might be particularly wary of going out to the caucuses in bad weather. The campaign has printed doorknob hangers with caucus locations printed in extra-large type, also to accommodate these older first-time caucusers.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

... volunteers from across the nation are telling Iowans to scoot over and make room. The campaign for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson sent an email to supporters, announcing the influx of "Richardson Roadrunners" in the state. According to the email, hundreds of volunteers left New Mexico Wednesday morning in order to volunteer for the campaign in the final sprint to caucus night. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign announced "Hill's Angels," individuals who will travel to communities the day prior to the candidate's arrival to meet with supporters and volunteers.

Labels: Bill_Richardson, Hillary_Clinton

Hillary Clinton offered the long and short version of her closing
argument to two separate crowds in Coralville Monday night, and told
one questioner that years of attacks by Republican Hillary Haters are
the very reason she's the strongest Democratic candidate. Clinton is
taking a mellower tone in her late campaign. Though AFSCME's "Turn Up
The Heat" signs from the November Jefferson Jackson Dinner were on
hand, the phrase did not appear in the speech. The speech is lower
key, with a slower, steadier pace, no by-name attacks on the other
Democrats, and relatively little partisan raw meat.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

With University of Iowa finals starting this week, it doesn't seem like students in Iowa City will get a face to face chance to ask Hillary Clinton about her campaign's contention that maybe they shouldn't be caucusing if their parents live in Schaumburg. But the lack of a campus event seems to fit a Clinton campaign pattern for the People's Republic of Johnson County. Saturday, the Clinton campaign announced their first Johnson County visit in two months: a 7:30 p.m. Monday stop in Coralville. That's the Monday night of finals week. Last weekend, she held events in two neighboring small counties, Iowa and Washington... without an Iowa City event.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, University of Iowa

Oh, yeah. This is familiar territory. The Obama-mania in Des Moines is
palpable. Everyone is asking everyone, "Who are you for?" Every time I
tell someone "I'm for Hillary," they screw up their brow and smile and
tilt their head and say, "really? I figured you'd be for Obama."
Technically, I am "for" any democrat who can restore our country's
good standing in the world and solve a myriad of problems that have
been created by George W. Bush's limited understanding of playing in
the world's sandbox. But yes, I am "for" Hillary even though she is
not the flavor of the month. I've seen this kind of hype before.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

... One student at Grinnell College, where over 80% of the student body is not from Iowa, received a phone call from Clinton's campaign Sunday. The caller invited the student, a registered Iowa voter who is from Minnesota, to attend Monday's 5:15PM event on campus with the former president. The student, who it should be noted is not a Clinton supporter, sent along this email: " The Clinton campaign called me today and invited me to the Bill [Clinton] event. They also asked who I was planning to caucus for and if I'd ever caucused before. So I decided to call them back and asked if they even wanted me to caucus. I said, "I'm a Grinnell College student but I'm from Minnesota. Does Hillary Clinton want my vote?" And the woman said, "That's a complicated issue, hold on a minute." So she put me on hold for about two minutes, then said, "I'm going to have our youth coordinator get back to you." And she took my name and number. I'm still waiting for them to tell me whether I'm worthy of caucusing for Hillary Clinton."

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton have all released caucus training videos for the Iowa Caucuses. Obama has also released a Nevada Caucus training video. Each video has its strengths and weaknesses, and here I'm going to use my subjective rating system and rate each of the three videos in four categories, Creativity, New Media Savvy, Effectiveness and how informative is it. One video, in my opinion, stood out as being the best by far - read below to see which one it was.

Labels: Barack_Obama, caucus, Hillary_Clinton, John_Edwards

Democrat Hillary Clinton is bashing President Bush's plan to address
the mortgage crisis, calling it "so meager as to barely register." "It
is designed to help as few people as possible," Clinton told Iowa
reporters in a conference call Thursday. She said Bush's plan for a
five-year freeze on rising mortgage rates allows lenders to decide if
a homeowner gets a rate freeze or will pay a substantially higher
rate. "The president should know that this case-by-case approach does
not work. It's resulted in only 1 percent of sub-prime loans being
modified this year," Clinton said.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Today, President Clinton complained about Hillary's press coverage.
Apparently, Bill thinks we'd all find Hill a more attractive
Presidential option if we just discussed her experience and
accomplishments more than we talked about the horse race. This
criticique presents an interesting and paradoxical challenge to the
media. What are Hillary's accomplishments? The only public program
with which Hillary was ever known to be involved was the
preposterously conceived and politically bungled 1993-1994 socialized
healthcare plan.

Labels: Bill_Clinton, Hillary_Clinton

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is baring her "fangs." That wasn't
somebody's insult. It was the approving reaction from one of her fans
as the Democratic presidential front-runner ripped into rival Sen.
Barack Obama's character for the second-straight day - this time
accusing him of dodging positions on politically-sensitive issues. "A
President can't pick and choose which challenges he or she will face,"
Clinton told her supporters at the legendary Surf Ballroom in Clear
Lake -- site of Buddy Holly's last concert before a fatal plane crash
in February 1959.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

With exactly one month left until the Iowa precinct caucuses, there will be virtually no more quiet days on the campaign trail. In Clear Lake, Iowa, where the sidewalks are covered in sheets of thick ice, folks are awaiting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's rally inside the famed Surf Ballroom -- the place where Buddy Holly and friends played their final gig before a tragic plane crash on Feb. 2, 1959. In separate appearances in Iowa on Sunday, Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama stepped up their war of words, and that could flare again. But today, Clinton's main goal is to rally supporters, encourage them to drag their buddies to the caucuses on Jan. 3, 2008, and keep spreading their word that the ideosycratic caucus system is "easy" for first-time participants.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

Iowans were surprised today when former President Bill Clinton hit the campaign trail in Muscatine, Iowa and endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for the coveted political nod: "The person I'd most likely want to go into a blizzard of adversaries until the last dog died." Dog-fighting adversaries, still reeling from the high-profile Michael Vick conviction, took note of Bill Clinton's liberal use of dog-fighting metaphors and vowed to ramp up the anybody-but-Hillary voting contingency.

Labels: Bill_Clinton, Hillary_Clinton

In Democratic politics, former President Bill Clinton can be like a blinding light. Whether you consider him brilliant or not, when he's on stage he has a tendency to obscure those standing around him. That includes his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. That could be one reason why he's mostly campaigning solo these days. On Tuesday, he sang his wife's praises at small town stops in eastern Iowa, the more Democrat-friendly half of the state where Sen. Clinton has pinned her hopes of winning a tight, three-way battle with Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards.

Labels: Bill_Clinton, Hillary_Clinton

... Clinton needs a Caucus 101 program more than some of her rivals because, more and more, it appears she is counting on first-time caucus-goers. Polls are showing that Clinton, not Gen-X phenom Barack Obama, is doing best among 18-29 year old potential caucusers (particularly young women). ... The funniest part of the Clinton video is about 1:35 in when they show an orderly school gym with about 50 people (carefully selected for diversity) and actual room to move around, even for the two people in wheelchairs. (One would be tokenism, two is a demographic.) Take that crowd, in a room that size, and multiply it by about eight or ten, and you'll get a more realistic picture. ... The deepest, darkest secret in the political universe is the vote total from the Iowa Democratic caucuses. It's never reported, it doesn't even exist. The only thing reported on caucus night is delegate numbers.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

... After calling Hillary's local office a couple of times to ask for clarification of instructions, I started by questioning myself and my husband, Jim. Then I moved on to my neighbors, both near and further away. I was absolutely amazed by how many Democrats are still undecided on a candidate to support. More than a few could not even tell me which way they were leaning. When I asked voters to list the number one issue determining who they were going to caucus for and/or vote for, more than a few struggled to narrow the issues to just one.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Monday, November 19, 2007 might be remembered as the day that sunk
Evita's Presidential hopes. While a long and winding road remains yet
to be traveled the last few weeks have taken a heavy toll on the
concept of Evita's inevitability. Hillary's first problem is the
intra-mural contest. The latest ABC shows Hillary trailing Obama in
Iowa for the first time. Then news releases showed Hillary trailing
Rudy, Mitt and Fred in Florida, a key bell weather for the Democrats
long term hope of retaining the White House. The two breaking polls
yesterday then lead the media pundits to return to a discussion of
other key states, like Ohio, where Evita either trails or is tied with
the leading Republican candidates.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

The campaign for New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is announcing
endorsements from two eastern Iowa lawmakers today. Rep. Todd Taylor,
House District 34, and Sen. Rob Hogg, Senate District 19, were both
rumored to be leaning Clinton after each was given the opportunity to
announce the presidential candidate during recent campaign stops in
Cedar Rapids. "I am convinced Hillary Clinton is ready to lead our
country and restore America's standing in the world," Hogg said. "Her
energy and climate plan would create thousands of new green jobs in
Iowa, protector our environment and break our dependence on foreign
oil."

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

I've got to agree with David Sirota here: Hillary Clinton Thinks
Iowans Are Stupid. Four days after voting for a trade agreement with
Peru, Hillary tells a United Auto Workers conference that "she'll call
a 'time out' on trade agreements if she wins the White House to see if
the deals are draining jobs from the U.S." She also campaigned today
in Waterloo, a city that has lost a lot of good manufacturing jobs.
Will people fall for this?

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Labels: Barack_Obama, Bill_Richardson, Chet_Culver, Chris_Dodd, Hillary_Clinton, IDP, Joe_Biden, John_Edwards, Tom_Harkin

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's white paper on energy and the looming
climate crisis was a long time coming, but at least one Iowa
environmental activist believes it was worth the wait. "I thought the
speech was great," said Mike Carberry, a regional field director for
Iowa Global Warming, after listening to Clinton's remarks on Monday.
"She pretty much covered the questions that we ask the presidential
candidates on all different levels of renewable energy and on global
warming reduction." Carberry, who has attended events for nearly all
the presidential candidates and focuses on their energy and climate
change policies, said it was important for Clinton to come out on this
issue.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Democrat Hillary Clinton had scathing words Tuesday for President
Bush, who has threatened to veto the 2007 farm bill. "President Bush
is waging a $300 million a day war in Iraq and has presided over the
largest fiscal deterioration in our nation's history, yet he's chosen
to draw the line for fiscal discipline at the feet of our hard working
farmers," Clinton said in a statement released by her campaign. "The
2007 Farm Bill contains vital investments in a safety net for farmers,
conservation, renewable energy, nutrition, and rural development that
will help sustain our rural communities and ensure that America's food
supply is abundant, safe and healthy."

Labels: agriculture, Hillary_Clinton

When the Iowa Democratic Party started selling tickets to its 2008 Jefferson Jackson Dinner, the state party's largest fundraiser -- and candidate cattle call -- of the year, it kicked off something of an arms race between the three top Democratic candidates for president. ... Now, campaigns have to find ways to actually fill all of the seats they bought, and it may be trickier than it sounds. Getting over 1,500 signed supporters to Des Moines next Saturday will be a struggle for any candidate, and I don't envy the people in charge of crowd-building for it. ... In an email obtained last night, Clinton's Political Director for the Midwest, Sean Johnson, asks out-of-staters to come to Iowa for a "day of action," which will include a canvass during the day and -- perhaps more importantly -- a chance to waive signs and look good on camera at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

A poll released Monday by the University of Iowa shows Republican Mitt
Romney growing his sizable lead among the Republican presidential
field and a close competition between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
on the Democratic side. The poll shows Romney with support of 36.2
percent of likely GOP caucus-goers, followed by Rudy Giuliani at a
distant second place with 13.1 percent. Mike Huckabee is in third
place at 12.8 percent, a jump from August when he registered under 2
percent. Fred Thompson takes fourth place with 11.4 percent, followed
by John McCain at 6 percent. Romney spokesman Tim Albrecht attributed
the high poll numbers to Romney's visits to the state, saying his
message is resonating. But the campaign expects the race to tighten
before the caucuses.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, Mitt_Romney, polling

Tonight, I attended Senator Hillary Clinton's lecture here on the
campus of Iowa State University in Ames, IA. The event, held in the
very beautiful Stephen's Auditorium, was not necessarily a typical
Hillary campaign event, but it was instead more of an annual event
celebrating women's achievement and leadership especially in politics.
My good friend Stephanie Lichter, the very impressive Chair of the ISU
College Republicans, accompanied me to the event tonight. When you go
to Hillary events, it's always good to bring a buddy... haha. The
Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics awards an annual
Mary Louise Smith Chairmanship for the year and Senator Clinton was
named this year's honorary chair. The Carrie Chapman Catt Center for
Women and Politics has hosted every woman that has ever run for
President going back to Senator Elizabeth Dole.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Iowans who've been listening to the radio and watching television have
been receiving the advertising messages of the presidential candidates
for months. It appears the candidates are starting to increase their
direct mail to likely Iowa Caucus-goers. Last weekend, New York
Senator Hillary Clinton sent out a letter explaining her vote on the
resolution which declared Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist
organization. Now, Illinois Senator Barack Obama is sending many of
the same people a little something in the mail. It's a piece
(featuring two photos of Obama) that directly confronts Clinton over
than Iran resolution. Here is what it says: "While others went along,
Obama opposed Bush's war plans..."

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

This morning's USA Today broke new ground for a Gannet publication; a
front page story about Democrat corruption. It appears that New York
Senator's Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton earmarked some one million
dollars of your income tax money for a museum on the site of Woodstock
concert. The museum is owned by a private corporation. The
corporation, in turn, is owned by a Republican named Alan Gerry. While
I dig rock 'n' roll music, particularly the Woodstock album (own it in
vinyl, CD and video), I'm not sure that giving tax money to help a
billionaire build a museum to the show is the best use of tax dollars.
Think of the help a million dollar grant could do for some small start
up business somewhere or the amount of AIDS vaccines for sub Saharan
Africa that could have been purchased with that money?

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Iowans are by and large straight-forward people. Given that, it should
come as no surprise that to the average Iowan, the Michigan ballot
situation seems pretty cut and dry: Democratic presidential hopefuls
who honor their four-state pledge and support the nomination calendar
won't be on Wolverine State's ballot. As with most things in life, and
especially politics, the situation is more complicated. Five
individuals connected to five different campaigns have confirmed --
but only under condition of anonymity -- that the situation that
developed in connection with the Michigan ballot is not at all as it
appears on the surface. The campaign for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama,
arguably fearing a poor showing in Michigan, reached out to the others
with a desire of leaving New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as the
only candidate on the ballot.

Labels: caucus dates, Hillary_Clinton

All aflutter is the Iowa blogosphere at today's developments regarding
the Michigan primary on January 15. I'm not too exorcised about it
either way, except... you guys signed a pledge, didn't you? Like, in
front of God - or at least the New York Times - and everybody. And I
know the Dodd and Clinton campaigns are already spinning like mad on
this, but it doesn't address the question: you guys signed a pledge,
didn't you? And it really doesn't cut any ice with me to have either
of these candidates assure us all that although they may have decided
to remain on the ballot, they won't be actively campaigning in
Michigan. For Hillary Clinton, at least, this is bound to invite
unflattering recollections of non-denial denials from the White House
years. And for Chris Dodd: what are you thinking? Being the
anti-Hillary in Michigan isn't going to help you much in Iowa.

Labels: Chris_Dodd, Hillary_Clinton

One of the first rules of public speaking is to know your audience. On
the campaign trail in Iowa no one does this more consistently or
effectively than New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Clinton and her
"Middle Class Express" rolled into Cedar Rapids this morning and
pitched to a predominately pro-union crowd at Veterans Memorial
Coliseum exactly what it wanted to hear. "I believe the middle class
is the backbone of our economy, the key to real growth, and the
guarantor of the American dream," she said. "America is only as strong
as our middle class. I judge the health of our economy by asking
whether or not our middle class is expanding and getting ahead. This
administration has failed the test. Mine will not."

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Polls might show Hillary Clinton leading the Democratic field in
national polls, but one of Clinton's top advisers believes she is
trailing John Edwards in Iowa. Terry McAuliffe, the national chairman
for Clinton's campaign, doesn't believe the polls that show her ahead
in Iowa. "I don't think we're winning it," McAuliffe said during a
phone interview on the campaign trail in Iowa. "I know that 3, 4, 5
polls have us leading. I don't believe it. I think we're bunched up
there. I think we're in second. I think Edwards is still out front,
but I think we're moving. And every day, things get better for us." On
the conventional wisdom that Clinton is too polarizing to win,
McAuliffe says once people get to know her, they like her.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Labels: Bill_Richardson, Chris_Dodd, Hillary_Clinton, Joe_Biden, John_Edwards

Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack was in New York City yesterday to
introduce Hillary Clinton at a NYC fundraiser. He took a turn on a
New York television station and took a few shots at former New York
Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Vilsack mentioned Giuliani's "multiple
marriages" and references Giuliani's strained relationships with his
children in the interview... Vilsack's statements would no doubt be
classified as "negative" by the Giuliani campaign, if the Giuliani
folks were making comments on this episode (which they're not).
Adding more context to this flap is Vilsack's tirade against Barack
Obama in July during the whole squabble over whether Obama and/or
Clinton would or would not talk to dictators if either is elected
president. "It's not the Iowa way," Vilsack said, accusing Obama of
engaging in "negative politics" in his verbal tussle with Clinton.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, Rudy_Giuliani, Tom_Vilsack

Things move fast in Iowa. Within minutes of New York Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton's unveiling of a mandatory health insurance plan in Des
Moines critiques were rolling in from rivals on both sides of the
political fence. "While she talks about the political scars she bears,
the personal scars borne by the American people are far greater," said
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who is also seeking the Democratic
presidential nomination. "The mismanagement of the effort in 1993 and
1994 has set back our ability to move toward universal health care
immeasurable. We've known what the problems have been for nearly 15
years, and what the solutions could be. What's been missing is
leadership that knows how to bring people together and get the job
done." Dodd went on to add that affordable health care will take more
than leadership "that simply knows how to fight -- it will take
leadership that knows how to bring people together and win."

Labels: health_care, Hillary_Clinton

They say some Iowa voters don't start paying attention to elections
until Labor Day. Well, here it is, the day that brings our Back Roads
to the White House vacation to an end -- and just in time to catch the
unofficial start of the sprint to the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucus.
You can start paying attention now. On Monday, the national Democratic
front-runner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, brought her
husband, former President Bill Clinton, back to the Iowa State
Fairgrounds, where he first joined her on the campaign trail in July.
The occasion was "Solidarity Fest," the holiday show of force for the
South-Central Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. But don't let the
event's name fool you. One of Clinton's leading rivals, Sen. John
Edwards of North Carolina, made sure he had made his pro-labor speech
and got out of there before the Clintons and their unusually large
media tag-along crew arrived.

Labels: Bill_Clinton, Hillary_Clinton

So much for the big scoop on Hillary Clinton laboring in Ames next
Monday. I posted yesterday how her campaign had asked the Ames City
Council to block off a portion of downtown so Clinton could hold an
event for approximately 1,000 people. The campaign today sent out an
early advisory that Clinton and her hubby will be going to Des Moines
(and Sioux City). No official word yet on why Des Moines and not Ames.
But an employee in the Ames City Clerk's office filled us in. She said
Hillary Clinton's campaign submitted its the original request last
Thursday. She said it was "a late request" for such an event involving
a road closure of Main Street. However, the city manager's
recommendation was to approve the request on the basis that it will
"create positive energy and promote downtown businesses".

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Plenty of volunteers have crappy experiences in campaign offices, because that's just how it goes. Once you agree to volunteer, campaigns don't put as much effort into making friends with you because they assume you have already drunk the Kool-Aid. Unfortunately, when there are few clear distinctions between candidates and a long, contentious primary, staff can't take volunteers' support for granted. Case in point, this Des Moines Register letter to the editor: "I came to Iowa as a die-hard Hillary Clinton supporter/volunteer, who was ready to help elect the first woman president of the United States... Within the first couple of days of arriving, I had seen three field workers cry because of the abuse they took..." I have trouble with the idea that the way campaign staff on the ground in Iowa treat volunteers has any bearing on how good a president a candidate will be; but, if Clinton staff is being driven to tears on a regular basis, there are going to be bigger problems for them to deal with.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

... In part, the ad is seeking not to introduce her to Iowans but to re-introduce her as the candidate who will focus on the ordinary Iowans and Americans as president. It is supposed to be the "more caring" side of Hillary, not the supposedly "politically calculating and manipulative" version that we've heard about in the press since about 1991. And in that endeavor, it succeeds. To me, the one place that it does fail is with the background music. I'm sorry, but it just seems cheesy and distracting. The content of the ad, what Clinton says, is the real substance and I think it is quite good for a re-introduction.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

That's what a crowd of school teachers in Storm Lake, Iowa, could have
told Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday night if they wanted to
play the role of class clowns. After all, that was what Clinton told a
debate moderator recently when he asked the crowd of candidates on
stage to reply to a question by raising their hands. But alas: it was
a missed opportunity for group sarcasm. Despite her complaints about
the dreaded show-of-hands questions during the debates, Clinton
apparently understands the value now. When the crowd is too big to get
detailed answers from everybody, well, why not save time by asking
them to raise their hands? She did it Tuesday by asking teachers to
raise their hands if they had ever had to spend their own money to buy
classroom supplies. Virtually every hand shot up. That's not a
surprise to anyone.

Labels: education, Hillary_Clinton

ARG, which has shown Clinton leading in Iowa all year, released a new
poll today with similar findings. Details and a spirited discussion of
this poll can be found over at MyDD. Here are the key findings:
Clinton 30 (down from 32 in last ARG poll), Edwards 21 (down from 29
in last ARG poll), Obama 15 (up from 13 in last ARG poll), Richardson
13 (up from 5 in last ARG poll). These numbers just don't ring true to
me. I don't believe Clinton leads Edwards in Iowa, and certainly not
by that kind of a margin. All year ARG has had Clinton around 30
percent in Iowa, and I can't remember any other pollster finding her
with support that high. ARG's new numbers for Republicans in Iowa are
also at odds with recent polling by other firms. ARG finds: Giuliani
22, Romney 21, McCain 17, Undecided 15, Fred Thompson 13, Gingrich 4.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, polling

Speaking this afternoon on a farm near Adel -- with a flat field of
corn behind him -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama
escalated his war of words with rival Hillary Clinton. "We can't keep
on doing the same stuff all the time. You know, some of you noticed
that this week I got into a debate with one of my colleagues who's
also running for the presidency and the debate was about whether or
not we talk to world leaders even when we don't like 'em and my theory
was you do and you do it without preconditions," Obama said, to
applause from the crowd. "And, you know, some of the pundits in
Washington, they said, 'Oh, that shows inexperience, that he'd be
willing to talk to folks' and my attitude was what do we have to fear
as Americans? Why is it that we should be afraid when we've got, if
we know who we are, if we know what we stand for, then we shouldn't be
afraid to meet anybody because we'll tell 'em what we believe and what
makes this country great. They may not like what we have to say,"
Obama said, as the crowd interrupted him with applause. "But we're
going to go ahead and speak to 'em about those issues."

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton

Earlier today Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign actively solicited
bloggers to join in on a conference call hosted by their blogger,
Peter Daou, in announcing a "special endorsement." The campaign
didn't release any more information about the endorsement and it was a
pretty cryptic move, yet I still decided to join in on the call along
with several other major bloggers from across the progressive
blogosphere. So, at 12:30 PM Central time I got on the call to find
out that the special endorsement was coming from former Ambassador Joe
Wilson, the husband of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. And by
12:53 PM I broke the news on Iowa Independent that Amb. Wilson had
chosen to endorse Clinton. Multiple blogs picked up the news and
reported the news, as they should have because it was a substantial
endorsement. But the traditional or mainstream media didn't pick up
the story at all.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

In an email to supporters, Sen. Tom Harkin announced his wife Ruth plans to formally endorse Democratic candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton. In the email, Harkin explains that he and Ruth are no strangers to passionate political involvement and that his wife did not take this decision lightly. "Ruth took many things into account before deciding on this endorsement," Harkin wrote. "When Ruth was elected to the position of Story County Attorney in 1972, she was honored to be the first woman to hold the position of county attorney in our state's history -- and one of the first female county-wide prosecutors in the country. It was an exciting and challenging time for her, but it taught her that groundbreaking accomplishments just don't happen. They are not just made -- they happen over time and with hard work, determination and focus." Ruth Harkin served as county attorney in Story County until 1979. She was the county's lead criminal prosecutor and also served as its corporate attorney.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, Tom_Harkin

An Iowa City event which had drawn a great deal of national attention has been partially postponed to allow presidential hopefuls who are also U.S. senators to travel back to the beltway for debate on a bill. The Iowa Professional Fire Fighters State Convention was to host presidential hopefuls Tuesday and Wednesday. Gov. Bill Richarson, Sen. Barack Obama, former Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Chris Dodd and Sen. Hillary Clinton confirmed they would be in attendance. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden was also scheduled to appear and represent his father, Sen. Joe Biden. There was also speculation that Pres. Bill Clinton would appear beside his wife for the event. The fire fighters have decided to postpone this portion of their convention when it was learned the event conflicted with debate on the Employee Free Choice Act.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Bill_Richardson, Chris_Dodd, Hillary_Clinton, Joe_Biden, John_Edwards

A new Mason-Dixon Iowa poll was released today. Of 400 likely
Democratic caucus-goers, 27 percent said they were undecided, followed
by Clinton with 22 percent, Edwards with 21 percent, Obama with 18
percent, Richardson with 6 percent, and Biden with 4 percent. The
Clintonistas are triumphant over at MyDD, confident that Teresa
Vilmain is already delivering the goods for Hillary, and that Bill
Clinton's three-day campaign swing through Iowa in early July is going
to seal the deal. Wishful thinking, in my view. I have a question for
Bleeding Heartland readers: how many undecided voters do you know who
have NOT ruled out Hillary? I know exactly two, out of scores and
scores of undecided Iowa caucus-goers I have talked to over the last
two months. If 27 percent of Iowans really are undecided (and I
wouldn't be surprised if the true proportion of undecideds is higher
than that), then Hillary is going to fall behind once they make up
their minds.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, polling

It's no secret that the Clinton camp has had a bumpy road in Iowa. Polls show her bouncing between second and third with Barack Obama here despite running first nationally, and the campaign very publicly considered the Screw Iowa Strategy a couple weeks ago in order to very publicly reject it. The over-the-top sign war at Saturday's Hall of Fame dinner makes it clear she intends to compete here. So, what's the problem? One could blame overthinking Iowa caucusgoers for focusing on "electability" -- we are, after all, the ones who derailed the Howard Dean candidacy. ... There's also the accusation of good old fashioned sexism -- we'll hear more and more that Iowa and Mississippi are the only two states who have never elected a woman as governor or to Congress. ... But strategy and history are asides. Perhaps Iowans are judging all candidates on their own merits, in the context of the era's leading issue, the war in Iraq. And here is where Hillary Clinton has her problem.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Chris Bowers has the numbers on the Democratic side at MyDD: Iowa, May 30, 1,238 likely caucus goers, MoE 2.7%. No trendlines. Edwards: 31; Clinton: 17; Obama: 17 ... I don't know whether Clinton and Obama are really that far back in Iowa, but I think it's fair to say that the recent ARG poll showing Clinton 31, Edwards 26 and Obama 11 was an outlier. ... I imagine that Obama does quite well among the "only have a cell phone" crowd, so polls may be understating his support. But if I were Obama, I would fire the scheduler who put him at a west-coast fundraiser instead of in Cedar Rapids on Saturday night. That was a crazy decision. He's rolling in money and is probably going to outraise Clinton in the second quarter. He's trailing in the Iowa polls and should have taken that opportunity to make the sale with party activists. Ordinary voters won't care a bit about who came to the Hall of Fame dinner. But every one of the 1,000 people who attended can probably influence at least a dozen friends and neighbors.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, IDP, John_Edwards

The buzz of the moment is the Hillary Clinton strategy memo, leaked and quickly denied with much love for corn and pigs offered, arguing for a Screw Iowa strategy. Ohhh, this is no accident. This isn't a sign of lack of discipline or intra-campaign strife. This is a deliberate, strategic move. ... By publicly considering the Screw Iowa strategy, she in effect does devalue Iowa, and gets to have it both ways. She dramatically reduces expectations by making the case for Screw Iowa and acknowledging weakness. But by not openly dissing Iowa (as Gore `88, McCain `00, and Lieberman/Clark '04 did) she keeps a hand in the game and avoids offending Iowa supporters (most prominently the Vilsacks).

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

To: Interested Parties; From: A. Voter; Re: An alternative candidate strategy ... I think this old system, which has served a successful winnowing process for many years, is about to collapse because of the impact of primary elections that are being held on Feb. 5. Proposal: I believe we need a new approach to interaction with the Democratic candidates. This approach involves shifting the focus away from big money and toward in-depth issues which can be discussed in smaller groups. More specifically, I propose skipping any candidate event where an individual cannot have at least 60 seconds of one-on-one time with a candidate and dedicating more of our time and human resources on candidates who both understand and respect the importance of allowing the American people to have more than a 15-second video clip or sound byte. ... After assessing this proposal against the best interest of our nation, my recommendation is to avoid candidates who pull completely out of Iowa; who spend money only in our nation's largest states; and who avoid one-on-one interaction with voters of all walks of life.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

Yesterday an internal Hillary Clinton memo was leaked to the press suggesting that she skip the Iowa caucuses to focus on other primaries. Shortly after that revelation, the Clinton campaign strongly refuted the memo and said they were committed to winning Iowa. "It's not the opinion of the campaign, Mrs. Clinton told Radio Iowa on Wednesday, referring to the memorandum. It's not my opinion." That's not political, face saving spin...that's the truth. When a Clinton says something, you can bank on it. Honest and intergrity are the back bone of a Clinton. It's about trust people. Clinton's aren't the type to simply tell people what they want to hear. They don't read opinion polls and change their beliefs just to pander to some hick voters. Hell no.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

... John Edwards continues to lead in Iowa, Obama and Clinton are basically tied for 2nd. The big news is Bill Richardson's jump to 10% in the poll. Richardson has been running TV ads for awhile now and they are playing well. I hope this Richardson motivation to make a greater effort in Iowa. The people I talk to are interested in Richardson, but want more information on on him. Chris Dodd is not catching on, which is a shame. He has taken some strong progressive positions, including supporting the Feingold-Reid bill last week. He is getting out polled by Kucinich and Gravel who haven't even campaigned here.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Bill_Richardson, Chris_Dodd, Dennis_Kucinich, Hillary_Clinton, John_Edwards, Mike_Gravel

Sugar, ham, tons of cheese and cookies...not a bad week, huh? No wonder I felt like I was carrying around a small child during my runs this weekend. Ah, life on the road. How do these presidential candidates do it? I'm going to guess that's why I don't see these folks on the cover of my Men's Health every month ... Here's a lowdown on the candidate, city and food served... Hillary Clinton--Red Oak--pie; John McCain--Ft. Dodge--ham sandwich, chips, cookie; Tommy Thompson--Anamosa, then West Des Moines--pizza buffet, then just pizza; Barack Obama--Indianola--not a dang thing; John Cox--his West Des Moines campaign headquarters--Jay's Potato Chips; I wonder what I'll think the next time I hear one of these people talk about tackling the obesity problem?

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, John_Cox, John_McCain, Tommy_Thompson

... HOT: John Edwards: I've been calling him the likely nominee for some time now, but it's probably time to back off that. I think he's running a better campaign than he ran in 2004, and he's been the first out of the gate with specific proposals on issues, including a very specific health care plan. ... On the downside, I think the early spotlight is shooting some holes in his image. ... (HOT) Barack Obama: He draws huge crowds wherever he goes, he's charismatic and he seems to be able to run a campaign on broad themes without anyone asking him why he's not specific on anything. ... But, I don't think he's prepared to be Chief Executive. I think he lacks the experience. The fact that he's entirely non-specific on issues means I have no idea what I agree with him on. ... WARM Chris Dodd: He jumped into the upper half of my list by being the first to advocate for public financing of campaigns in the debate. ... I'm glad he's running in Iowa, but he feels like more of a "I have something to add to the conversation" candidate than a true contender. (WARM) Bill Richardson: He brings incredible foreign policy experience to the race. He may be the last presidential candidate in my lifetime to bring 4 Nobel Prize nominations to the table. He's the only candidate in the race from farther west than Illinois. He might also be the only candidate that doesn't scare the crap out of the NRA. However, his admission that he hadn't advocated for the firing of the Attorney General because Alberto Gonzales is Hispanic was flatly racist, and there's no excuse for it. ... COLD: Joe Biden ... Hillary Clinton ... She's putting a happy face on her years of controversy and blaming them on "sticking up for her beliefs," which is partially true. She's got enormously huge money and the capacity to out-advertise any of her opponents 2-to-1. ... I'm a firm believer that voters should never choose a candidate just because they can beat the Republicans, but there's an argument to be made that there's no way she could beat a Republican.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Bill_Richardson, Chris_Dodd, Hillary_Clinton, Joe_Biden, John_Edwards

Just back from watching the debate with JCDems chair Brian Flaherty who says, in chairmanly neutrality, that everyone did great and he wants to hear more health care. The rest of the thoughts are mine in blogger-ly snarkiness. Joe Biden had a great night and Brian Williams knew it; by the end of the debate he was going to Biden more and more and Dodd and Richardson less. And in the post-debate interviews, Biden was in What I'll Do As President mode (well, Secretary of State maybe) while Dodd was begging for consideration and Richardson (who looked disappointed) was giving the answer he should have given to one of the debate questions. My favorite sequence was the "elephant in the room" round early in the debate when Williams asked about perceived weaknesses and character flaws. (Someone missed an opportunity to chuckle at the question with an air of "this is so ridiculous it's beneath me, but as you insist on asking, I have nothing to hide.") Edwards did well with his response to a $400 haircut question, which served as the launch pad for some Everyone Should Have The Opportunity I've Had and Son Of A Millworker stories including one I hadn't heard before of having to leave a restaurant without ordering because his dad couldn't afford anything on the menu.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, Joe_Biden, John_Edwards

The inevitable finally happened when Democratic Leadership Corporation Diva, Hillary Just Hillary, acquired former DLC Chair Tom Vilsack. Even though Vilsack, Inc. went into the red after its failed presidential bid, Hillary, Inc. went ahead with the merger, promising to help Vilsack pay off his $400,000 campaign debt. Wow, that's some dowry, eh? Maybe Vilsack should throw in a couple of goats to sweeten the deal. Although this is a mere pittance when compared to the multi-trillion dollar debt our next President stands to inherit, not including the Iraq War Bush threw in for good measure. King George may want to consider throwing in his two daughters as a peace offering. The world of corporate politics works just the same as the traditional corporate world, meaning there's no such thing as "money for nothin'." So how's Vilsack going to earn his keep?

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, Tom_Vilsack

***He's overstocked with 2007 endorsements, political favors, and back room deals. Campaign staffers? He's got it. Union ties? He's got it. A last name that sounds like a pickle? He's gooooot it!!! Everything has got to go as the 2008s are arriving daily. Tom Vilsack's cRaZy, insanE blowout endorsement sale, where you don't have to be a rock star...just a carpet bagging, corrupt Senator from New York. Come and get it...*** Vilsack endorses Hillary Clinton at the same time the Clinton campaign pays off Vilsack's remaining campaign debt. But don't you for one second believe the two are related. Don't do it! ... Of course you know why it's ridiculous? Because a Vilsack endorsement isn't worth $400K. Maybe $1.25...$1.75 tops...possibly $2.25 if he was a family member in need of a hand out. Now Christie Vilsack's endorsement on the other hand...

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, Tom_Vilsack

I attended the Good Morning America healthcare forum with Hillary Clinton. ... Once inside, the audience was put into a staging area in the SCI café, where the production staff would periodically arrive to summon groups of people onto the set. Notably, one of these groups consisted of people pre-selected to ask questions. So, yes, the questions that were broadcast during the show appear to have been entirely pre-selected, either by ABC, or the Clinton campaign, or both. That's show biz. ... During commercial breaks, Clinton mingled with the audience. It was quite different from the massive kickoff event I attended back in January; with a crowd of merely a couple hundred, rather than thousands, on a television set, rather than a gymnasium floor, the dynamic between the candidate and the crowd was less rope-line frenzy and more actual one-on-one conversation.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton

After being the first to officially drop out of the '08 presidential campaign, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is planning to put a political curse on Hillary's campaign next Monday. The two notable figureheads of the Democratic Leadership Corporation will co-opt their wonder-DLC powers together in the form of one slightly more notable figurehead of the DLC. The DLC is expected to recognize the cursed occasion by expanding their merchandising and releasing a monolithic bobblehead doll that features both of their likenesses.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, Tom_Vilsack

After the Edwards campaign released its list of "senior Iowa staff" the other day, I thought it might be prudent to discuss how each campaign's staff is shaping up. Their differing approaches are interesting, at least, and they could make a difference by the time the caucuses come around next January. First up, the Obama campaign has been doing quite a bit of hiring over the last month. ... Some have compared Obama's staff to Howard Dean's from four years ago, because it seems to include an unusual number of ideologically motivated young people, many of whom have never worked a caucus before. ... Next, the Edwards campaign has staffed all or most of its key positions as well, and has begun hiring field organizers. In contrast to Obama's staff, most of Edwards's staff so far have Iowa political experience ... And finally, Hillary Clinton's campaign has been a bit slower to announce their hiring decisions here, but those whom they have hired have impressive resumes.

Labels: Barack_Obama, Hillary_Clinton, John_Edwards

Having served his none-too-subtle role in the grand scheme of the 2OO8 presidential competition -- keeping as many Iowa Democrats as possible "locked up" until New York Senator Hillary Clinton got her campaign up and running in the first caucus state -- former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack today announced his exit from the race for the Democratic nomination. ... From the start, Vilsack's job was to present himself as a respectable alternative to the other Democratic candidates who, while he would go nowhere in states other than Iowa, could remain in the running with his fellow Hawkeyes until it was time to get out of Clinton's way. Even that modest task proved difficult. Iowa Democrats never took Vilsack's candidacy all that seriously.

Labels: Hillary_Clinton, Tom_Vilsack