Des Moines
Iowa Democrats are, at long last, ready for Hillary. Well, mostly ready. At a campaign event near the state capitol building Monday night, the buttons and signs and chants—”When I say ‘Madam,’ you say, ‘President!'”—were ample evidence that the former secretary of state is consolidating support among her party’s activist base in Iowa. And the conclusion of the 2016 Democratic primary fight is treated—by supporters, activists, and the candidate herself—as foregone.
Clinton’s performance Monday, part stump speech and part grassroots rally-cry, almost entirely ignored the upcoming Democratic caucuses on February 1.
“I know what we have to do to build on the progress that we’ve made,” Clinton said. “And the first thing we have to do is not let the Republicans rip it away by winning the election in November!”
What a difference eight years has made. In 2008, the Hawkeye State’s Democrats spurned Clinton for Barack Obama in what became a knock-down, drag-out war between the two candidates. Despite a long primary fight, Obama’s Iowa win presaged his eventual nomination and general-election victory, but not before nearly tearing apart the state’s activists on either side of the Clinton-Obama divide.
Heather Johnson, a 37-year-old Clinton precinct captain in Davenport, remembers 2008 well. After a Monday afternoon Clinton rally in Davenport, Johnson tells me how she and her Obama-supporting friends in 2008 had to stop speaking for several weeks leading up to the caucuses. “It was bad,” she says. But she adds the acrimony among the activists just isn’t there this time around. The divide may even have been bridged, at least somewhat.
“I know people who were 100 percent for Obama in 2008 and have come over to Hillary,” says Johnson. Others, she admits, are supporting Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who currently has 37 percent support to Clinton’s 50 percent in Iowa, according to the polls. And those Obama-turned-Hillary supporters aren’t exactly as enthusiastic about their new champion.
“They’re supporting Hillary, but they’re not working hard like they were,” says Johnson. “A lot of them are on the sidelines.”
Instead of intra-party bitterness among Iowa Democrats, 2016 could result in something worse: apathy. With all the action and competitiveness on the Republican side of the primary, Democrats could have trouble getting enough people energized to caucus next month and, more importantly, turn out again in November.
Bob and Terry Askelson, 56 and 55, don’t think so. The Askelsons are active volunteers for Clinton in the Des Moines suburb of Norwalk and supported her in 2008 (Terry caucused for Clinton but Bob, who was then a federal employee, was not allowed to participate). Before Clinton’s Des Moines event on Monday, both tell me they think turnout at this year’s Democratic caucuses will be bigger than most expect.
“I think there’s a lot of cohesion in the Democratic party,” says Bob, who adds that even the Bernie supporters they meet when knocking on doors admit they think Clinton will eventually win and they’re excited to support her, too.
But Heather Johnson sounds a little concerned. “I talk to a lot of people who say, ‘I don’t need to caucus, she’s got this in the bag,'” she says. “That’s just not true.”
As I talked with those at the Clinton events in both Davenport and Des Moines, it was clear many attendees were O.C.—Original Clintonistas. If there were any hardcore Obama fans there ready to rally, cheer, and caucus for Hillary, I couldn’t find them. More typical was 74-year-old Shannon Brown of Des Moines, who caucused for Clinton last time around and sounds like quintessential O.C.
“I wanted her to win in 2008!” Brown tells me. “We’re ready to try again.”
