In Iowa, Bubba's back

By Ben Smith, Politico.com
CHEROKEE, Iowa — Hillary Clinton has been deploying her most valuable resource in the conservative, rural country of Western Iowa, where Democrats seldom focus.
The resource is Bill Clinton and the campaign is hoping that — despite his new stature as a silver-haired, globe-trotting ex-president, — he still has the skill that helped make him a Democratic party star in the first place: His ability to connect with rural voters and coax them to identify with a small-town son of a single mom.

"I love saying this," he began in Sergeant Bluff. "I never had a nickel to my name until I got to the White House, and I was broker when I left than when I came in. I had the lowest net worth of any president of the United States."

In Clinton's telling, Sen. Clinton was never quite as down and out as he.

He had run for president, he said, so that "just so one time in my life I could make more money than my wife."

The rural precincts of Western Iowa represent a minority of the state's Democrats, who are clustered in Des Moines, in college towns and in the small cities in the east of the state, near the Mississippi River. But Clinton's aides believe that persistence, and Bill, can help her win support from the older, less-educated Democrats. (And it has the added advantage of keeping the former president, who has a bad habit of inadvertently stealing headlines from his wife, far from the Des Moines-based press — Politico was accompanied only by a single local radio reporter at one event.)

Sen. Barack Obama has had the most trouble winning support of older and rural voters, according to polls. In Cherokee, one Clinton precinct captain who asked that her name not be used questioned his prospects: "We've got to keep an eye on electability," she said. "Is America ready for a black president?"

The former president, though, didn't mention his rivals, and his presence reminded his audience of better times.

"I liked him as president," said Violet Rohlk, who lives alone and semi-retired on a farm near Cherokee, and said she had cast her first Democratic vote for Clinton in 1992.

"He makes a better case for Hillary than Hillary does for herself," said Rory Coulk, 49, a mail carrier in Storm Lake who said he had arrived at the middle school gymnasium — site of his own caucus Thursday — planning to support former Sen. John Edwards, but left supporting Clinton.

Clinton's speech runs a loose hour, and despite criticism that he focuses too much on himself, in fact dwells largely on his wife's past and on her plans. But where she can be wonky and cutting, he is as homespun as ever.

"This is the only country where we let the health care financing tail wag the health care dog," he said in Sergeant Bluff. "Any time the tail wags the dog you get in trouble."

Speaking of his wife's role in the Irish peace process, he said she had worked "to get the Irish Catholic women and the Protestant women together to knock the heads of the hard-headed men and get them to make peace."

At one point, Clinton seemed to discuss his own charm in a riff devoted to a potential Republican rival and fellow former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee.

"We were born in the same little town and I know him quite well," Clinton said in Sergeant Bluff, adding that Huckabee "seems to be the only one [of the Republicans] who can give a speech, tell a story, or tell a joke. It's a pretty dour crowd on the other side, and Mike's pretty funny."

"We grew up in an oral culture and we like to laugh," said Clinton. The original man from Hope, Ark. — also Huckabee's hometown — hopes his gift of gab can still convince voters at a time when his wife most needs it.

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