How Clinton Could Lose Iowa

[Commentary] Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is perhaps the best organized, most highly orchestrated campaign in history.  Her events go off without a hitch, her spokespeople have incredible message discipline, and she has taken precious few unpopular positions to distinguish her from her closest rivals.

While Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards, among others, have challenged her more directly and explicitly in recent weeks over two key issues — her vote for a resolution classifying Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group and her willingness to accept campaign contributions from federal lobbyists and PACs — that alone will not provide them enough ammunition to cause her serious damage between now and January.  And Clinton is not likely to give her rivals many more policy issues to rally around before Iowans head to their precinct caucuses.

Sure, there are differences between Clinton and the rest of the field about how to withdraw from the Iraq war.  There are minor differences between candidates on health care.  The differences on campaign contributions are real.  And there are a host of other differences between the candidates, but none so far has permeated the electorate’s consciousness enough to cause large-scale factionalization.  Candidates are trying, and to succeed they must continue; but these distinctions alone will not be enough for them to overtake her.

Clinton’s rivals cannot plan to beat the New York Senator by attacking her on specific policy proposals or waiting for her to make gaffes, because Clinton is not going to give anyone enough of that material to work with.  Defeating her will take a series of attacks surrounding one question, asked of caucus goers: “How well do you really know Sen. Clinton?”

If the campaign continues on its current track, even Clinton’s strongest supporters might answer “Not very well.”The truth is, although the Clinton campaign has paid much lip service to the importance of retail politics, they aren’t walking the walk.  According to numbers compiled from several sources including Iowans for Sensible Priorities, an organization which seeks to ask candidates questions about the Pentagon budget and records their answers, Clinton seldom holds question-and-answer sessions at her public events.  One estimate indicates that she has taken questions from audiences no more than about a dozen times since she began traveling around the state last summer.  (She has answered voters’ questions one-on-one on rope lines a few more times than that, but that is not the same as holding “town hall” style events where she answers questions in front of the whole crowd.)

Iowans for Sensible Priorities did not observe Clinton taking questions from voters in public a single time between her June 9 event in Story County and her “Middle Class Express” bus tour earlier this month.  On that tour, she only took questions at a few events.

At this point in the campaign, Iowans may be willing to support a candidate who has not answered all of their questions fully and completely.  The Caucuses are still months away, after all, and not everyone has had a chance to see every candidate yet.  In another month, however, rank and file caucus goers will start to finalize their choices, and they are not likely to choose a candidate whom they have never heard answer questions from their friends and neighbors.  And even if they do, they are less likely to brave the cold January weather to caucus for them.

Other campaigns are beginning to lay the groundwork for the kinds of attacks to come.  The Obama campaign’s new TV ad (entitled “Quiet”), which first ran in New Hampshire and is now running in Iowa, showcases the Illinois Senator doing exactly what Clinton has not done in the so-called “retail politics” states thus far.  Surrounded on all sides by a small, quiet crowd, Obama lays out a position that he knows to be unpopular, and he identifies it as such.  At an event in Nevada, IA, Thursday, Gov. Bill Richardson made a point of answering questions from every audience member who had one, even when he was forced to resort to a rapid-fire series of questions and answers at the end.  His campaign staff attempted to get Richardson to wrap up to stay on schedule, but he persisted.

In fact, aside from Clinton, every Democratic candidate for president seems to have taken questions at well over half of their public appearances in the state, according to activists, campaign officials, frequent event attendees, and other sources contacted by Iowa Independent over the past few weeks.  Aside from a few policy roll-out speeches and multiple candidate appearances, sources were hard-pressed to think of any events at which Clinton’s rivals avoided taking questions publicly.  Edwards, Richardson, and Obama, along with Sen. Chris Dodd and Sen. Joe Biden, have been known to keep stump speeches short in an effort to allow the maximum number of audience questions possible at their events.

Candidates who hope to defeat the national front-runner must begin to target her more specifically on this count.  While direct attacks might not come until the final weeks of December (assuming the Caucuses will be held in early January), it is not too early to subtly remind voters of which candidates are open with them and which one is not.  Much of the work will be done for them by caucus goers themselves, but they can help move things along by emphasizing their willingness to take questions and give specific answers at every opportunity.

That the top three Democratic candidates are locked in a virtual tie for first place in Iowa comes as no surprise right now.  It is too early for Iowans to wonder why their questions have not been answered.  But over the coming months, skepticism of the front-runner will set in, as it often does here.  If Clinton hopes to maintain or expand her standing in Iowa, she will have to start giving specific answers to questions posed by members of the public.  Otherwise, she risks softening — and potentially losing — much of the support that she has built here.