Clinton Reaches Out to Women in Iowa

By Anne E. Kornblut

Washington Post Staff Writer

DES MOINES, Jan. 27 -- More than a thousand people crammed into an auditorium to hear Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) here on Saturday, but did she actually win any solid votes?

"I haven't made my mind up for sure," said Terri Hoffman, 53, a teacher who worked as a volunteer at the Clinton event and enthusiastically asked a question during it. "I also like Edwards. He's thinking along the same lines as Hillary."

Lorna Bingham of Des Moines said she was impressed by how articulate Clinton was. "I didn't realize she was such a good speaker," she said. But she said she is far from making up her mind. "I'm up in the air," she said, declaring that she is considering Clinton, former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack and former North Carolina senator John Edwards.

This being Iowa, clusters of voters surveyed (unscientifically, to be sure) said they had not set a personal deadline for themselves to decide, setting the stage for a real competition over the next year. And -- perhaps because the campaign is only in its early days -- no one complained about political fatigue (yet).

"There's this sense of urgency. We did have a good election in November, and now the next step, the critical step, is winning back the White House," said Bonnie Campbell, a longtime Clinton ally in Iowa.

But that is no guarantee that Democrats will rush to a conclusion. Dorothy Rankins, 58, a daycare supervisor in Des Moines, said she would support Clinton -- but she had a fondness for Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois as well. "I do have concerns that because she is a woman, the big boys won't want to see her in power," Rankins, who is African-American, said. Still, she added: "I think in America, she would have a better chance of winning than Obama would."

And Susan Bingaman, 28, a food technologist who attended the town hall meeting, was satisfied with the answers Clinton gave but said she still might vote for Obama instead. "Living in Iowa, I don't have to decide anytime soon," she said. "Luckily, they come to us."