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Posted: July 9, 2007 6:16 PM
Clintons Draw Big Crowds in Iowa, Major Press Attention
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Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., along with former President Bill Clinton, wrapped up the Iowa portion of her “Ready For Change, Ready to Lead” tour late last week, drawing huge crowds and plenty of headlines.

Some 3,000 people gathered Tuesday at the historic intersection of 2nd and Main streets in Davenport, the same place where John and Robert Kennedy campaigned during the 1960s. Tory Brecht of the Quad City Times described the speech: “Repeatedly, U.S. Sen. Clinton asked supporters to look back in time — to both the earnestness of the Kennedy years in the 1960s and the Clinton administration in the 1990s — to envision the future.”

The Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs reported that 250 people were expected to attend a Thursday barbecue in Muscatine, and the Clinton team “purchased enough hotdogs, burgers and lemonade to feed that many. Then 1,256 signed in for the noontime workday event. The food quickly ran out. Six staffers raced to a Fareway store and two other stores to purchase ice cream, fruit and sandwiches.”

NewsDay’s Glenn Thrush opines that although “there were times during his three days in Iowa that Bill Clinton seemed ill at ease in the shade… [the joint venture] accomplished two short-term goals. First, it overshadowed Barack Obama’s startling dominance in second-quarter fundraising… Second, it provided Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which can often seem robotic, a dash of elan, unpredictability and fun.”

Clinton’s next stop after Iowa was Cleveland, Ohio where she addressed the United Steelworkers Candidates’ Forum Friday, July 6. This last weekend found her in New Orleans attending the Essence Music Festival.

But fear not, the “Ready for Change, Ready to Lead” roadshow is headed north later this week, when Hillary and Bill Clinton team up once again to campaign, this time in New Hampshire. Clinton plans to kick off this leg of the joint tour Friday in the Keene, Nashua and Manchester areas, before continuing on to Salem and Rochester over the weekend.

Before meeting up with her former president husband, Sen. Clinton will deliver a key speech on Iraq on Tuesday. On Thursday, July 12, she is scheduled to participate in the NAACP Democratic Presidential Candidates Forum in Detroit, Mich.
With the campaign going full steam, Camp Clinton got good news this week from the American public, who, according to the latest Newsweek poll, appear to comfortable with electing a woman as the next president of the United States.

Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed answered the question: “Do you think America is ready to elect a woman president or not?” in the affirmative, and 86 percent said they would personally vote for a qualified female candidate if she were nominated by their party.

Respondents in a separate Gallup survey went even further. “More than any other specific comment, Americans cite the historical significance of Clinton being the first female commander-in-chief as the best outcome of her possible election… Regardless of their views of Hillary Clinton, all respondents in the late June poll were asked to say what would be the ‘best or most positive thing about a Hillary Clinton presidency?’ The most frequently occurring specific response — given by 22 percent — is a reference to the fact that Clinton would be the first female president.”