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Clinton: Hillary is changing people's lives

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By Ed Tibbetts | Wednesday, January 02, 2008 |

CLINTON, Iowa — Former President Bill Clinton may have captured the frenzy of the presidential campaign two days before the Iowa caucuses when he made a stop here Tuesday.

Acknowledging his wife Hillary Clinton’s precinct captains at Ashford University here, the ex-president deadpanned: “You realize, of course, the future of the free world is riding on your performance.”

It might be easy to think that. After all, nearly all the presidential candidates — and hundreds of national reporters — were criss-crossing the state Tuesday, a day when most Iowans would normally be indoors watching a bunch of football.

In fact, the campaigning was so widespread in Iowa that even an ex-president with Clinton’s star power only drew a handful of reporters, with most of them local.

A riser held just a couple cameras, a row for print reporters nearly unoccupied.

Nonetheless, over an hour’s time the former president held tightly the attention of a few hundred people as he praised his wife’s record as an activist, lawyer, first lady and U.S. senator from New York.

He said she led education reform in Arkansas, fought for health care in the White House and was an helpful with foreign missions — all before she got elected to an office.

“She was changing people’s lives with no public office,” Clinton said.

U.S. Sen. Clinton is locked in a three-way battle with U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John Edwards.

The former president said Tuesday his wife would win the presidency handily if she’s nominated. And he added she has the experience to deal with unexpected crises while pushing ahead with her agenda.

In the last days before the caucuses, undecided Iowans are nearing the finish line and having a powerful surrogate like Clinton can be of great value.

Barb Traver, a Clinton woman who will be attending her first caucus Thursday, said she is still considering Clinton and Edwards, but that the president’s visit helped Clinton’s cause because he told her things she didn’t know. “I think some people do things in the normal course of their lives that we don’t hear about,” Traver said.

Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at

(563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com. Comment on this article at qctimes.com.