Clinton in Iowa to support Dems, assess ’16 prospects
DES MOINES, Iowa — Hillary Rodham Clinton will wade back Sunday into Iowa and the unique brand of retail politics that so confounded her during the 2008 campaign.
Clinton’s attendance at the 37th and likely final steak fry hosted each year by Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat who is retiring, will bestow some much-needed heft on Democratic candidates in Iowa who are stuck in tight midterm races.
But the handshaking, speechmaking and beef eating will also allow Clinton, alongside former President Bill Clinton, to take a measure of the pivotal early caucus state, which came to symbolize the dysfunction and disappointment of her last presidential campaign.
More than 5,000 people are expected to attend the steak fry, the most since Hillary Clinton last went in 2007, along with then-Sen. Barack Obama and other Democratic presidential hopefuls. More than 200 journalists have requested credentials.
Clinton has not been in the state since January 2008, when she finished in third place in the caucuses and Obama was first propelled toward the nomination. For many Iowa Democrats counting on the Clintons to bolster their ticket this year, the once and perhaps future first couple’s return cannot come soon enough.
“I’m anxious to see them Sunday and chat,” said Mark Smith, the Democratic leader of the Iowa House. He said he would ask the Clintons, who have been in demand in tight 2014 races, “for help and to explain to them the value of investing in Iowa and a Democratic House here.”
Fundraising skills
Iowa Democrats need to gain only four state House seats to win a majority, and particularly at the local level, party officials rely on the fundraising prowess of national figures.
Excitement to see Clinton will not necessarily translate to votes, as she learned in 2008, when she finished behind Obama and John Edwards.
Activists in Iowa, like those in New Hampshire, famously demand personal attention from White House prospects, a ritual that can grate on the candidates and their staffs. For all the talk about whether Clinton’s centrist tendencies match her party’s liberal moment, winning in Iowa is often as much about paying respect to its onevote-at-a-time tradition as it is about ideology.
Organizationally, Clinton’s campaign struggled with the Iowa style of politics. For example, Jan Bauer — the Democratic chairwoman of Story County, north of Des Moines, who supported Obama — received three calls from him and only one from Hillary Clinton, she said. And, unlike Obama, Hillary Clinton did not ask for Bauer’s vote when she did call. “If you’re not willing to ask, you’re not going to get a commitment,” Bauer said.
Learning from 2008
Asked whether she would get behind Clinton in 2016, Bauer said: “I haven’t gotten to that point yet. I’m looking to see what kind of an organization they’re going to put together.”
Clinton’s supporters said she had learned her lesson. “The challenges she saw in 2008 would be fixed this time around,” said Jennifer Granholm, a former governor of Michigan and an adviser to Ready for Hillary, an outside group that builds grassroots support for Clinton’s candidacy.
At least one master of Iowa politics, Harkin — like others who want to ensure that Clinton competes here — disagreed with that assessment. “There’s this myth that somehow she screwed up,” he said. “It’s just that Barack Obama was a phenomenon. He just out-hustled everyone. She knows that. I think she knew it then.”