NYT: Feeling Heat, Clinton Tries Iowa Up Close

[BeyondGeography]

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and PATRICK HEALY
Published: December 12, 2007

DES MOINES — Ten months ago, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton went to East High School here on her first trip to Iowa as a presidential candidate and laid out a case for her candidacy to a cheering crowd in a packed gymnasium. Mrs. Clinton returned to East High School late last week. But the crowd was much smaller and more sedate. And rather than discussing her candidacy, Mrs. Clinton explained the caucus process and showed a video titled “Caucusing Is Easy.”

...Though she maintains a solid lead among Democrats in most national polls, Mrs. Clinton is showing signs of vulnerability, with her margins narrowing in the early voting states and her main rival for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama, taking her on more aggressively. Nowhere are her problems more on display than in this state, where success lies in building a person-to-person network of supporters. And nowhere is the Clinton campaign — which to some Iowans had appeared ignorant of the political subtleties, if not arrogant about them — working more urgently to recalibrate and head off defeat as the Jan. 3 caucus approaches.

“Here’s the bottom line: They had not worked this state,” said Teresa Vilmain, the Iowa state director, who was brought in here in a quiet campaign shake-up that took place early last summer, when Mrs. Clinton first saw signs of problems here. “We had a lot of ground to cover. It’s a challenge.”

...The signs of Mrs. Clinton’s concern have been on increasing display here in recent days as the campaign has been moving rapidly to make up for earlier mistakes. Her aides said she had largely cleared her schedule this week to prepare for the Democratic debate on Thursday sponsored by The Des Moines Register, the final encounter here among all the candidates, which they now view as one of their final opportunities to shift the momentum back to her favor. Needing a strong performance to head off inroads made by Mr. Obama and tamp down questions about whether she is too calculating, she is reviewing past Register debates and issues of particular importance in Iowa, and hoping to win The Register’s endorsement, the aides said. (She went from East High School to downtown Des Moines for a private dinner Friday evening with David Yepsen, the influential Des Moines Register columnist, who has repeatedly questioned whether Mrs. Clinton appreciated the nuances of the state.)

...Mrs. Clinton spent much of the early part of the year working huge rallies in the state’s major news media markets in the belief that the coverage would reverberate into the more sparsely populated areas. But that is not the way things work in Iowa. Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards methodically worked rural areas, appreciating the importance of personal appeals to small groups of voters. Over the last six weeks, Mrs. Clinton has opened satellite offices and intensified her visits to rural Iowa...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/us/politics/12clinton.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[jefferson_dem]

1. She showed a video about how to caucus?

Wowie Zowie. Now there's a confident candidate...

... :sarcasm:

[jenmito]

How inspired the crowd must've been!

:rofl:

[Pirate Smile]

2. Hmmm - Yepson dining with Clinton and then writing his column attacking

Iowa college students for having the nerve to want to actually caucus as they are legally able to do.

People have been fuming at Yepson all day and I think that little detail will just add to it.


I did think this part was interesting:

"On her first trip here last January, one adviser said, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly expressed frustration, confiding to one associate that she “had no feel for the place.” She responded with bewilderment when informed that she should not assume that she now had the support of an Iowa Democratic leader even after spending 40 minutes over coffee with him. "

[BeyondGeography]

3. Smelly, isn't it?

[fightindonkey]

4. Iowa Has Never Elected A Woman To Higher Office