Clinton Overhauls, but Doesn't Exit, in Iowa

By Politics
Wednesday, June 6, 2007

With seven months until the Iowa caucuses, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is shaking up her Iowa campaign, announcing new leadership at her caucus headquarters.

Taking over as the campaign's Iowa director is Teresa Vilmain, 48, a veteran organizer and Iowa native who got her start managing caucus campaigns with Gary Hart and Michael Dukakis in 1987-1988 and was advising former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack before he ended his presidential bid in February. Vilsack endorsed Clinton, and Vilmain, who lives in Wisconsin, for weeks has been informally advising her Iowa campaign.

Vilmain replaces JoDee Winterhof, 41, an Iowa native who has served as chief of staff to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and worked on Al Gore's 2000 caucus campaign. She will stay on the Iowa team as a "senior strategist" and chief surrogate for Clinton around the state.

The move comes two weeks after the leak of a memo from Clinton's national headquarters raising the possibility of skipping Iowa, where polls show her trailing former senator John Edwards of North Carolina. Clinton's campaign has since maintained that it is definitely competing in the state, pointing to her frequent visits there in recent weeks.

Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said the shake-up should be viewed as an expansion of the campaign's team in Des Moines and its emphasis on Iowa.

"We know we've got a lot of work to do, and this is a recognition that with more smart people we'll be able to accomplish more," he said. "We know other people have a bigger head start and we have a lot of ground to make up."

-- Alec MacGillis

Obama Cites 'Quiet Riots'

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said in a speech yesterday that "quiet riots that take place every day" in impoverished communities around the country create conditions that lead to violence such as the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

"Most of the ministers here know that those riots didn't erupt overnight; there had been a 'quiet riot' building up in Los Angeles and across this country for years," Obama told a conference of ministers at Hampton University in Virginia. "If you had gone to any street corner in Chicago or Baton Rouge or Hampton -- you would have found the same young men and women without hope, without miracles, and without a sense of destiny other than life on the edge."

-- Perry Bacon Jr.

Edwards, Helms and Candor

The wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina, yesterday compared him to another state politician known for blunt candor -- conservative icon Jesse Helms. Elizabeth Edwards, before giving a speech in Savannah, Ga., invoked the name of Republican Helms when asked if her husband could appeal to conservative Southern voters.

"I remember one time somebody saying that 'John Edwards reminds me of Jesse Helms,' " she said. "They didn't agree on a single policy, I don't think. But here's what they agreed on -- that people should know where they stood."

Edwards said her husband has been honest with Americans in saying he made a mistake by voting in the Senate to authorize the invasion of Iraq. She said he blames himself, not faulty intelligence that suggested Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

"Certainly every woman loves to hear a man admit, now and again, that they were wrong," she told reporters. "And John's willing to do that."

Helms's outspoken opposition to abortion, gay rights and a national holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. drew the wrath of Democrats and moderates.

-- Associated Press

Wyoming Decision Can Wait

With the death of Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), the Wyoming Republican Party has a couple of weeks to nominate three appointees to finish his term through 2008. Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) will make the official appointment. The party said it would announce details of the process after Thomas's funeral, which has not yet been scheduled.

"We will deliver a sound process for this critical selection, but . . . out of respect for the family, we ask that premature speculation be set aside and time be allowed for grieving," said the party chairman, Fred Parady.

-- Zachary A. Goldfarb