DES MOINES, IA.–I’m at the gym at the Oak Park elementary school right now listening to White House hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). I have not been on the road with her for some time and the stump speech has changed a bit. She’s very direct in her appeal to women voters.
“We cannot let the health insurance industry determine what happens wth the entire American economy,” she said. The backdrop banner says “Rebuilding the Road to the Middle Class.”
She’s more subdued than last night, when she talked to the Polk County Democrats, after rivals Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
“It all starts in the Iowa caucuses,” she is saying. “I know a lot of you have never caucused before…it is a totally new experience for me too.”
Help make history, she is saying. “I am thrilled to be running to be the first woman president of the United States of America.”
She says she gets “validation and support” from two groups of people..women in their nineties and parents who bring their sons and daughters.”
“The promise of America” is now for “both our daughters and our sons.”