News out of the Hillary Clinton camp yesterday that caucus vet Teresa Vilmain, most recently of the late Vilsack campaign, is heading up the Iowa operation, with JoDee Winterhof moving to a senior strategist role.
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. ("John Kerry's safer! They can't attack him on defense, he's a war hero!") National polls show Iowa frontrunner John Edwards, and to some extent Obama, beating the frontrunning Republicans more comfortably than Clinton does.
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. There's a Vote For The Woman undercurrent to the Clinton campaign in Iowa, akin to the JFK strategy in heavily Protestant West Virginia in 1960. Kennedy made the logically fallacious but effective argument: prove you aren't bigoted by nominating a Catholic. The Clinton endorsement rollout, expected soon, is sure to be full of leading female and feminist names. This "historic first" strategy is confounded to some extent by Obama's unanticipated candidacy, and to a lesser extent by Bill Richardson.
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.
State Senator Barack Obama did not have to vote on the war in October 2002, but he spoke against it at the time and has a consistent line: "I opposed this war from the start." John Edwards and Hillary Clinton both cast yes votes.
As his second presidential campaign began, John Edwards broke out of the box and uttered three words one so rarely hears from a politician: "I was wrong." The peace community appears to have accepted that and, to the protestations of Defund Now Dennis Kucinich, Edwards is emerging as a favorite of the anti-war left.
In sharp contrast, Hillary Clinton has not done so. Perhaps gender politics play a role here. To many voters, particularly general election independents, the presidency is seen through a Commander In Chief lens, with that role emphasized above and beyond other presidential duties. Seeing a woman in that role will take a leap of imagination for many people, and Clinton may feel a need to seem "tougher" than the other candidates.
Her consistent line, repeated again in Sunday night's debate, is "if I knew then what I know now, I would have voted differently." But perhaps more significantly, this February statement may haunt her:
“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.”
Many Iowans appear to be doing just that.
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