By Anne E. Kornblut and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 28, 2007; A01
DES MOINES, Jan. 27 -- Bursting onto the campaign trail for the first time here on Saturday, Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly confronted two looming questions about her presidential candidacy: whether voters are ready to elect a woman to the White House and how aggressively she would respond to Republican attacks if she were her party's nominee.
Clinton held her first major public event a week after entering the 2008 campaign. It was a glossy, town-hall-style "conversation" with Iowans at a high school here in Des Moines, and it came nearly a full year before the state's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, scheduled for next January.
In an auditorium packed with more than 1,000 people -- many of them women -- Clinton stood alone at center stage, her arms outstretched, as she encouraged Iowans to help her win the presidency. "I'm running for president, and I'm in it to win it," she said to a burst of applause.
But the first question put to her focused on whether she, as a woman, would have extra difficulty winning.
Clinton conceded that there may be special obstacles for any female candidate. "I think you've got to move beyond that," she said. "I am going to be asking people to vote for me based on my entire life experience. The fact that I'm a woman, the fact that I'm a mom, is part of who I am. But I'm going to ask people to vote for the person they believe would be the best president of the United States."
Clinton got just one question about Iraq, and she deflected it without answering it, speaking instead about health care for veterans.
But at a morning session with Iowa Democratic Party officials, she was asked to address her vote for the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing President Bush to go to war. That vote, along with her reluctance until late last year to recant, has put her at odds with many antiwar activists in the party and is expected to be a factor as she begins to meet voters in a state with a strong antiwar tradition.
"I've taken responsibility for my vote," she said. "But there are no do-overs in life. I wish there were. I acted on the best judgment I had at the time." She closed by noting: "I may have a slightly different take on this than some of the people who come through here."
The questions at the town hall meeting were uniformly polite and often adulatory. But her appearance among party officials brought out concerns that have echoed for months among party insiders nationally, all related to whether she may be such a polarizing figure that she will have a difficult time getting elected.
Clinton acknowledged that the campaign ahead might become brutal, particularly if she is picked as the Democratic nominee. She noted that she had overcome doubters who had predicted that she could not win a Senate seat in New York. And in response to a question about the lessons she has learned from Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry's loss to President Bush in 2004, Clinton promised to respond aggressively when attacked.
"When you're attacked, you have to deck your opponents," she said, after a more tepid initial response. She added: "I want to run a positive, issue-oriented, visionary campaign. But you can count on me to stand my ground and fight back."
Clinton is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, based on national polls of Democrats, her capacity to raise as much or more money than any of her rivals, and the extensive network of loyalists built up during the presidency of her husband, Bill Clinton. But in Iowa, she is just one of four candidates currently viewed as the strongest contenders.
The others are Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who will formally launch his candidacy in two weeks; former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who has a strong base from his second-place finish here in 2004; and former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. Many Democrats here see Edwards currently in the strongest position, and he drew a sizable crowd on his first trip to the state as an announced candidate last month. But the campaign appears wide open at this point.
Clinton promised to return here often. And in her town hall appearance, she wryly remarked that she hopes to "have this as a one-on-one conversation, just you and me, and about several hundred national press people." But she added that the hoopla "will fade, and we'll actually be able to pursue this conversation in a very personal way."
Her interaction with the crowd was personal at times, despite the news media crush. One woman, Terri Hoffman, 53, a teacher from Des Moines, confessed in front of the audience that she is going through menopause. Clinton nodded knowingly and smiled. At another point, a member of the audience shouted to Clinton: "You go, girl!"
"You go with me!" Clinton replied.
At the end of her hour-long appearance, as the tune "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" filled the gymnasium, Clinton lingered to shake hands and sign autographs -- a practice more closely associated with her husband.
The immediate reaction to Clinton's performance at East High School was enthusiastic. Still, many said that it is far too early for them to commit to her or to any of the other Democratic candidates vying for the nomination.
"She's an electrically charged presence who is articulate," said Marilyn Musser of Des Moines, who had posed the question about how Clinton intends to deal with the gender issue in the campaign.
Musser said Clinton's candidacy is the "most impressive for me," but she added: "We're a long way from the election." She made clear that the prospect of electing the first female president is a factor in her consideration. "What else do women have to prove?" she asked.
Effie Hall of Grinnell, Iowa, was impressed with how well Clinton connected with the audience. "People say she's cold, but I thought she was quite warm," she said.
But Hall said the questions ignored some major issues facing the country. "Iraq wasn't really part of it," she said. "She talked about the VA and her support of the VA [Veterans Affairs] system, but I thought there would be more. Maybe that's an old story. Maybe people knew she supported [the war] and now has backed off."
The Clinton campaign worked to build the crowds. It ran radio ads encouraging people to attend the candidate's public events and used "robocalls" -- automated phone messages using Clinton's voice -- to let the most likely caucus attendees know she was coming. Clinton's advisers said they made no effort to screen those who came to the town hall meeting or to try to manage the questioning.
In addition to her public events, a busy private schedule filled Clinton's 24 hours in Des Moines. She met with Gov. Chet Culver (D) shortly after arriving on Friday, and later attended a private dinner with 15 to 20 Democratic elected officials. On Saturday morning, Clinton met with labor leaders over breakfast at her hotel.
At a house party in Cedar Rapids on Saturday night, Clinton raised the subject of Iraq herself, expressing strong disapproval of Bush's handling of the war and calling for Congress to cut off funding for Iraqi troops.
"The rest of the world is standing with their arms crossed, just kind of waiting to see what we do," she said. "In the Congress, we are trying to set a different message now."
She said that, through a bipartisan resolution of disapproval, the Democratic-led Congress is "trying to demonstrate to the world that at least some of us understand what has to be done."
"But it's going to be hard because we have very few tools that we can use to try to reverse course. The president has enormous power in the area," Clinton said.