By Jacob Davis
CSMS Magazine
It was déjà vu all over again. Yes, last Sunday, some 10, 000 people turned out to greet Hillary Clinton to her highly anticipated first visit to Iowa. Let’s be reminded that the former Secretary of State finished a poor third-place in the 2008 caucuses. This time, Hillary appeared to be ready to hold her ground until the last hours of what is shaping up to be a long and bitterly contested election cycle.
By her side was the now gray-haired good-old Bill, husband and former president who, according to the pundits, is steadfast committed to overseeing everything this time and to making sure that the iron lady reaches Pennsylvania Avenue unopposed and without any unexpected glitches.
If we want to believe the fast-food/mainstream media, Hillary has good reasons to be fired up. According to a new CNN/Opinion Research poll released this week, Mrs. Clinton has mastered a commanding 38 point lead over her closest rival for the 2016 Iowa caucuses, securing 53 percent support to Biden’s 15 percent.
But the former First Lady is not the only presidential hopeful in the Democratic pack. Vice-president Joe Biden is said to be sharpening his tolls to put up a much better fight in the quest to secure the Democratic ticket. Biden finished fifth in the 2008 caucuses, and there’s little indication he would perform substantially better this time around. “Anyone you talk to in Democratic politics in Iowa says there’s not room for Biden,” CBS News Political Director John Dickerson said Sunday.
John Dickerson went on to say that “clearly [Clinton] is of the past, in a sense, but because she’s the first woman or would be the first woman nominee of a major party that is future, that sort of speaks to the future in a way. That’s obviously never happened before and Joe Biden has nothing like that going for him. He’s the past.”
A hotly contested terrain, the fight to win the White House has official begun, although Mrs. Clinton has yet to publically announce her candidacy. Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa, told CBS News after Clinton’s event that “right now, there’s room for everybody,” and argued that the former Secretary of State will need an opponent to sharpen her campaign for the general election. As for Biden, he added, “but I don’t know that Biden would have a lot of support here.”
