Campaign Will Get More Intense, Clinton Says
N.Y. Senator, Edwards and Obama Will All Swing Through Iowa This Week

By Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 4, 2007

OSKALOOSA, Iowa -- In her first swing through Iowa since coming under the sharpest attacks of the campaign from her Democratic rivals, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was "thrilled" to hear some cheers.

Her campaign had mentioned the strong support she is getting from young people in a memo to reporters this past week, but it was not referring to the ones here. Even before the Democrat from New York entered a farming museum in this town, fifth- and sixth-grade girls, seated behind where Clinton would speak, were shouting, "We want Hillary for president."

"I'm . . . thrilled to have my very own cheerleaders," Clinton joked after arriving. Later, as they chanted her name again, she turned and proclaimed: "This is better than a poll. I'm going to take these young women with me everywhere I go."

In this small town of about 10,000 an hour outside of Des Moines, Clinton launched a four-day, 12-city swing that may help determine who the Democratic nominee will be and whether, about a year from today, Clinton will be elected as the United States' first female president.

Former senator John Edwards (N.C.), set to arrive Sunday, will stop in many of the same towns. And as Clinton leaves Iowa, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) will start his own four-day trip through the state Tuesday night.

"These caucuses two months from today are going to start the process," Clinton told a crowd of more than 100. "It's never started earlier; it's never been more intense."

And that intensity, the candidate acknowledged, is increasingly focused on her. After Tuesday night's debate in Philadelphia, in which Edwards and Obama answered nearly every question with a critique of Clinton, her aides put out a video titled "The Politics of Pile On," which shows all of her opponents attacking her.

"With 60 days left, things are going to get a little hotter," Clinton said here. "I remember very well when Harry Truman once said . . . 'If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.' I feel real comfortable in the kitchen. Obviously, the campaign is going to get heated up and speeded up."

In Iowa, the polls show what is effectively a three-way tie among Edwards, Clinton and Obama. Befitting her status as the national front-runner, Clinton focused her speeches here on slamming President Bush, never mentioning the other contenders by name, even though they are now criticizing her in almost every appearance. She signaled that she will not attack her Democratic rivals, saying, "I want to stay focused on what I want to do as president."

She held a rally with members of the state chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a labor union that announced its endorsement of Clinton on Thursday.

Dozens of staffers, either new hires or those from Clinton's headquarters in Virginia, are headed to Iowa, as all three leading Democratic candidates are investing heavily in staff and launching huge television campaigns in the state. Clinton's rivals hope Iowa will be the place where they derail what some people are painting as her "inevitable" march to the nomination.

In Oskaloosa, where Clinton took half a dozen questions after her speech, voters did not ask the candidate about the various issues on which Obama and Edwards are criticizing her, such as her recent vote for legislation that designated part of Iran's military as a terrorist organization. Obama and Edwards said the measure gave Bush a rationale to go to war with Iran. Regardless, when asked about rising gasoline prices, Clinton rerouted her answer to shore up her position on the vote.

"I wish the president would stop talking about how we are going to have World War III with Iran," Clinton said. She added: "We have got to stop him from rushing this country into another war."

Voters in Iowa have been so concerned about her vote in connection with the Iraq war that she now declares, at the start of every speech, that she will end the war if she is elected, although she does not detail how.

At the end of her speech here, Clinton seemed to acknowledge that the candidates may be overloading voters in the state. Noting that people might have "chores" to do on a Saturday, she said, "Please don't feel you have to stay." Almost no one left. Instead, most stayed to pepper her with questions on health care and the economy.