Posted on 01/27/2007 2:48:08 AM PST by MadIvan
Forget the glitzy Hollywood fundraisers and the big-money donors in Manhattan.
To win the White House, Senator Hillary Clinton needs to sit down in the diners of the frozen flatlands of Iowa and, over coffee and buttered pancakes, persuade folks that she understands them.
It will be a hard sell. But Iowa holds the first presidential caucuses, considered a crucial test of popularity, and she arrives here today.
In a local poll this week, she was placed fourth for the Democratic nomination.
The breakfast crowd in the 1950s-style Drake Diner in Des Moines, where Mrs Clinton stopped for a chocolate malt three years ago on her last visit to the state, doubt that she can close the gap.
"I just don't know if the US is ready for a woman president," said Genelle Chladek, who waited on Mrs Clinton then and remembers a "very gracious" tip. "I'm just impressed a woman would make the move but there's a fear factor."
There is a question over whether Mrs Clinton has the common touch. "She came in with the Secret Service and about six others," said Mrs Chladek. "She sat way inside the booth as kind of a protection manoeuvre, though she did visit people as she left."
A stop at the diner is a rite of passage for candidates. "People grill 'em when they come in here," said Shannon Traczyk, the manager. "It's fun to watch.
"The east and west coasts are more corporate and intellectual. Here, it's the heartland."
Iowa, a farm state that produces much of America's corn and pork, is sparsely populated and has never elected a woman to Congress or as governor. "In politics, you have show horses and work horses," said Rick Schulenburg, 58, who, like many Iowans, looks at the candidates as if judging an agricultural contest. "Hillary is more of a show horse. She puts her finger in the wind, sees which way it's blowing and that's the position she takes."
John Edwards, a former senator who just missed becoming vice-president in 2004, has visited Iowa 17 times since the last election. He leads the local polls, ahead of Senator Barack Obama.
Both want immediate troop withdrawals from Iraq, while Mrs Clinton's stance is more cautious. Her initial support for a now deeply unpopular war could cost her dearly.
"I don't know if people will vote for Hillary – I hear mixed opinions," said Miss Traczyk, who recalled that the last time Mr Edwards was in he took a "to go" meal. "If she comes in and starts talking to people we'll get a better sense of who she is. But she's a star, a celebrity, so that might be hard to do.
"She's got a cold image and there's the whole Monica Lewinsky thing. I don't think people understand her position with Bill's infidelities."
Miss Traczyk favoured Mr Obama, saying he had "that Kennedy factor".
When Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992, he skipped the Iowa caucuses. These days, that would be too big a risk. In 2004, John Kerry secured the Democratic nomination by winning Iowa. This time, the race has begun so early that the caucuses are more important than ever.
Even Mrs Clinton's backers in the diner feared for her prospects. "I'm definitely a fan," said Cheri Adair, 67, who works with victims of crime.
"I want the Democrats to win big time. But I'm afraid that she will be nominated and not be elected and lose it for the party."
The last time she did that in 2000, she and her entourage stiffed the waitress on the tip.
Not that it has mattered twice to the genius voters here in the People's Republic of New York. Hopefully most of the rest of the country won't be as stupid.
Word has it he is boinking a very wealthy blonde Canadian babe by the name of Belinda.
Yea, but she wouldn't let any foreign leader get away with anything she didn't know about behind her back. (heavy sarcasm)
This must have been after Hitlery made national news previously for not tipping. I guess she learned sumpin.
Why would Iowa democrats be any different then rest of America. They are part of same cult. Whatever Rev.Jones, I mean, Hitlery tells them, they will blindly follow.
Hilary thinks she is better than the rest of us. Smarter, more capable,just above the common man. It shows ,and it hurts her. She is in a class by herself,and it isnt a very high class.
Since many politicians are nothing but swine or sheep themselves, it's not a bad measure.
"over coffee and buttered pancakes"
Yeah, those thighs and cankles need some more bulk.
'I'm afraid that she will be nominated and not be elected and lose it for the party'
I hope and pray that this says it all -
Hillary and her elitist Marxist Washington cult hate rural America. While in power they marched out their Gestapo federal bureaucracy to destroy property rights in rural America, steal private land and create de facto federal nature preserves.
Citizens in fly-over country need to realize that Hillary hates you and all you represent - individualism, self-initiative, and a belief in free enterprise.
Hillary is, quite simply, a Stalinist.
She love having the chance to talk to the little people who mean so much to Her.
BUMP
Isn't this the reason her camp wants to make all the primaries around the same time, to avoid an Iowa? Fnny, haven't heard it mentioned in the MSM.
Good call on the primaries, but I've just heard the same thing from MSM news this last week, reporting on the move by some of the big states to advance their primary dates to some date very close to New Hampshire's.
Hillary is a coffeehouse Communist and will never have the "common touch" -- those people never did, not even in the 19th century, when they mostly hung around in tenement squats they refused to pay rent on, drinking plonk and arguing theory far into the night.
Intellectual or semi-intellectual, indolent gutter rats is what those people are, who turned Leftist politics into a grift.
Hillary has a very chilling way of putting things, doesn't she? "You will be assimilated! Resistance is futile!"
She's not nearly as cute as Jeri Ryan, though. And even Jeri's Borg babe turned out to be human in the end. Unlike Hillary.
The DNC timing is more likely based on media hype possibilities, a sustained media surge that will leave us all ga, ga, crawling over broken Republican glass to kiss the wrinkled toes of the Iron Maiden.LOL.
Even if she deigns to sit with normal folks, she'll no doubt stiff the waitress again by leaving without tipping.
Would she as president seek a codependant relationship with Men Like Muqtada Al Sad'r?
Actually, Hillary is one of the few women I know who would look better in a burkha.I guess I'll vote for her. LOL!
I have raised the same thing years ago , when the Clinton scandal was in full swing. How could any potential leader of this country look at her husbands seminal fluid on Lewinski's blue dress, AND NOT BLINK?
Anyone who had real leadership potential would have either put horns on her husband, or impeached him in a divorce court.
Hillary Clinton is unfit for command.
And she will become codependant on many politicians in America, and on others abroad. You are absloutely correct.
Will she get down and do the dirty with another person, and will we find out about it? Likely. I would rather not our nation go there.
To get Hillary off, it takes a Village.
I thought the Telegraph was a little more centrist than that -- or am I thinking of another Fleet Street paper?
Of course, they might just be returning the favor, Bill Clinton having involved himself in lending his campaign advisors to several politicians abroad, including Argentina's Mr. Menem, Labor Party candidates in Israel, and Tony Blair.
Perfect~ She's a nag, destined for the glue factory.
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