While several leading Republicans have visited Iowa to lay the groundwork for possible presidential runs, until Friday not a single Democrat considering a run for the White House in 2016 had traveled to the nation’s first-voting state. Even though Sen. Amy Klobuchar is a decidedly long shot in her party’s sweepstakes, her trip to Clear Lakeover the weekend marked a beginning for Democrats in Iowa. And perhaps more importantly, it illustrated the dilemma facing every Democrat not named Clinton who is thinking about running for president.
As Democrats convened in Clear Lake’s Surf Ballroom for their annual Wing Ding fundraiser, the presence of Mrs. Clinton was so powerful, and the assumption that she would be the Democrats’ 2016 nominee was so strong, that Klobuchar appeared to conclude that her only choice was to campaign for vice president.
“You are the state that has gained notoriety for picking the country’s presidents,” she told the audience in an extended comparison between Iowa and her home state of Minnesota, “and we are the state, thanks to the great Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, that supplies the country with vice presidents.”
“In fact,” Klobuchar continued, “it is a long-time tradition in Minnesota that new moms, gushing with pride, bounce their babies on their knee and say, ‘One day you can be growing up to be vice president.’”
Even when Klobuchar made a joke at the expense of the most famous vice-presidential candidate in recent years — “I am literally only two hours from here, and I can see Iowa from my porch!” — it only served to position her as a candidate for the second place on the ticket. And when she became serious, she had to pay tribute to Clinton for “the incredible work that [she] has done promoting economic opportunity for all, making the country a safer place, and the incredible work she has done for women, in the Senate, in the country, and all over the world.”
The shadow of Clinton hung over the Surf Ballroom, and not just in Klobuchar’s remarks. Before Klobuchar spoke, the party gave its annual Beacon Award to none other than Mrs. Clinton (who was, of course, not there). Accepting the award on Clinton’s behalf was a woman named Joy Newcom, who just happened to be the Winnebago County chairman of the Clinton campaign back in 2008. No paid advertising could have portrayed Clinton in any more favorable light. “I don’t think any of us have lived to see a woman achieve a greater set of goals,” Newcom said. “Hillary Clinton, this beacon of light, her beacon of light, has shone regardless of the title she has held.”
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