Can 'Obamadale' become 'Clintondale'? Iowa progressives await humble Hillary
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Version 0 of 1. They renamed their neighborhood “Obamadale”, throwing themselves into Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign with such vigor that the media dubbed them his “secret weapon”. Now a small band of hyper-active, hyper-progressive volunteers in Iowa are contemplating the arrival on their doorstep of the left’s most famous – and as yet only official – candidate to replace Obama in the White House: Hillary Clinton. As the former first lady and secretary of state made her way to Iowa in a Scooby-Doo-inspired van to start her second presidential campaign, the founding members of “Obamadale” had a forceful message for a humbler Clinton: the liberal heartland’s support must still be earned – and even the frontrunner for the most powerful job on Earth can take nothing for granted. “We are undecided. We don’t know enough about her. She’ll come and face the ordinary people of Iowa, we’ll ask her the tough questions, and then we’ll decide,” said Kimberley Boggus, 36. Related: Can Hillary Clinton overcome 'politics as usual' to bridge enthusiasm gap? Given the intensity of their political passions, and the extent of their activism, Boggus and her fellow “Obamadale” devotees are precisely the types of women and men Clinton needs to win over as she mounts her second and probably final campaign in the starting-gun caucus state of Iowa. If she is to fend off challengers from the left and maintain the levels of grassroots engagement that Obama achieved in both his presidential campaigns – driving women and young first-time voters to the polls in historic numbers – then she needs to enlist the help of these tireless volunteers. “Obamadale” members talked to the Guardian about the early race for the Democratic presidential nomination in the bar – Tally’s – where they formed their political fighting machine in 2011. It was just weeks after the party had suffered the serious set-back of the 2010 midterm elections and, knowing that Obama’s own hopes of re-election depended in no small part on Iowa, about 25 people from the Des Moines neighborhood of Beaverdale came together over beers and martinis to pledge themselves to do all they could to secure his second term. And it worked. After months of relentless door-knocking, phone calling and new-voter registrations, the merry band of progressives contributed to a surge in turnout that achieved an extraordinary 85% of Democratic voters in their district, helping to secure Iowa – and with it Obama’s eventual soaring return to the Oval Office. Three years later, the widespread impression is that Clinton has virtually sewn up the nomination before the race has even truly begun. Yet she still trails Republican wildcard Rand Paul in an early poll of Iowa voters – and only narrowly leads establishment conservatives like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie. Even on the Democratic side, the committed brethren of Obamadale insist that just because she came here first doesn’t mean Clinton has won over a new liberal base. “She hasn’t told us anything yet,” said John Judge, 60, a human resources manager and fellow co-founder of the group. “We’re looking at her as though she was a totally unknown candidate, because we really don’t know where she stands on the policies.” Echoing concerns that have already rattled up and down the Washington-New York political corridor, Boggus said she has yet to be persuaded about Clinton’s progressive credentials. She has many questions to put to the former US senator and secretary of state, rattling them off for the benefit of the Guardian in quick-fire succession. “What is your vision for Wall Street reform? Do you believe the big banks should be accountable? Will you find a pathway to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants? Will you do everything you can to make Obamacare stick?” Related: Hillary Clinton signals break with past in Iowa call to end 'uncontrolled money' In her first campaign appearance on Tuesday, before a group of educators and students in nearby Monticello, Clinton made a quietly populist pitch short on policy specifics but long on campaign priorities. “There’s something wrong when CEOs make 300 times more than the typical worker,” she said, echoing the only substantive policy line from the Sunday video that launched her bid. With aides promising that “we are humble”, Clinton’s team is rolling out her 2016 campaign under the shadow of her disastrous performance in Iowa eight years ago. The state is traditionally the first in the US to declare its preferences for presidential candidates, and her 2008 campaign managers had conceived it as the launching pad of her inevitable march to becoming America’s first female president. Instead, she finished in a humiliating third place, behind Obama and the tub-thumping John Edwards. That ill-fated effort was bedeviled with missteps, including a question about climate change clumsily planted with an Iowan college student. The top-down, regimented style of the campaign also jarred in a state where intimacy and direct access to candidates rises above glamour and grandstanding. Another “Obamadale” activist, 67-year-old Bob Meddaugh, remembers attending Clinton rallies of 500 or 1,000 people in 2008. They were swarming with secret service and national press, and he came away feeling detached in a way that he did not from the more low-key appearances of Obama and Edwards, or his preferred candidate – the current vice-president and dithering potential-candidate-in-chief – Joe Biden. The experience has left a pressing residue of doubt in the minds of voters. “Many people think she’s aloof,” Meddaugh said. “Whether she is or isn’t I’m not quite sure, but one of the priorities of her candidacy must be to put her down among us.” Indeed, “down among us” could be used as a slogan for the reinvention Clinton has tried out from YouTube to the American midwest this week. (She is expected to visit the primary states of South Carolina and New Hampshire by week’s end.) In contrast to the way she kickstarted her 2008 bid – “I’m in, and I’m in to win” – her launch video this time around focused on ordinary voters and a promise to listen to them. “I’m hitting the road to earn your vote because it’s your time,” she said, striking a note so in contrast to her failed run that it could almost read as a long-delayed apology. Significantly, the video has gone over extremely well with the dedicated volunteers of Obamadale. “It was masterful,” said Meddaugh. “This time it sounded like an invitation, a desire to listen and learn.” Boggus agreed: “It was beautiful. It was amazing. It was not what I expected.” What had she expected? “Did I expect her to launch out of a cannon? No. But I was impressed because there weren’t a lot if “I” statements – “I did this, I should win because I did that”. In ’08 it was all Hillary-focused. But this video wasn’t about her, it was about starting a conversation, a dialogue, here in Iowa and across the nation.” So did Boggus think the candidate had learned from the errors of her last campaign? “No doubt, no doubt,” she said. “She’s learned a little bit of humility.” Which is not to say that Clinton has sealed the deal – not by a long stretch. As if to warn her, Obamadale members turned out in force last week to hear the not-yet-declared Maryland governor Martin O’Malley speak in front of a crowd of more than 200 people at Cooney’s Tavern, the neighborhood Irish bar. “It was impressive. I’m looking for that progressive voice and I really liked what O’Malley had to say,” Boggus said. “His experience as a governor – giving people who come here illegally college education, making Maryland public schools the best in the nation, introducing marriage equality, abolishing the death penalty – these things speak to Iowans.” Even those like Meddaugh, who sees himself as “pretty signed up already” to support the Clinton camp, want to see other Democratic candidates join the race, in the spirit of open debate that is embodied in Iowa’s bottom-up caucus process. “The sooner people enter now that Hillary Clinton has declared, the better – they just need to plug their noses, jump in and hope they can swim,” he said. But Clinton is in deep. She has a chance to repair the damage of Iowa 2008 – and maybe even, by January of next year, turn Obamadale into Clintondale. “The great thing about Iowa, about Iowans in general,” Boggus said, “was that we’ll give you another chance. If you reached for the brass ring and you didn’t quite make it, we’ll give you another go. Come here, make your case. Let’s start the conversation.” |