New York Times
10-09-07
As Clinton’s Lead Grows, Voter Q and A’s Shrink
By Patrick Healy
Hillary Rodham Clinton
AMES, Iowa – As Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered her stump speech at a rally
here on Monday night, Luke Gran stood among the throngs with his hand thrust
in the air, eager for Mrs. Clinton to call on him to ask a question.
Mrs. Clinton never did. Nor did she take any questions from average voters at
her four other events Monday. Nor has she, with a few exceptions, since Labor
Day.
A review of Mrs. Clinton’s daily campaign schedules during the last five weeks
says a great deal about her candidacy right now: She has mostly delivered
speeches, attended candidate debates, forums, and fund-raisers, and headlined
rallies. As Adam Nagourney points out in a story in The Times today, she is
running a classic front-runner campaign, holding fewer unpredictable events
where voters can lob bombshells at her – even though such events that were
once a staple of her schedule, and are still common for rivals like Barack Obama
and John Edwards.
During Labor Day week, according to her schedules, she held rallies with her
husband, Bill Clinton, in Iowa and New Hampshire; gave two speeches about
senior citizen issues; spoke at the New Jersey Democratic convention; attended
a rally on ground zero issues; and went to fund-raisers. Through the rest of
September and early October, she attended debates and forums on Hispanic,
African-American, and other issues; delivered a speech to the NAACP; unveiled
policy on health care, science, urban issues, and the economy; headlined a
series of fund-raisers, and held more rallies and functions.
Mrs. Clinton, of course, does face questions and scrutiny at the debates, and she
does grant interviews with individual reporters – appearing on the five morning
talk shows one Sunday in September, for instance, and speaking to The New
York Times (among others) about her plans for health insurance and scientific
research.
There have been a few question-and-answer sessions with voters, but hardly as
many as she once held or as many as her Democratic and Republican rivals still
hold. On Sunday, without much notice to the media, her “Organizing for Change”
events in Iowa were turned into Q&As, raising questions among reporters about
whether recent scrutiny of her front-runner strategy had led her to interact more
directly with voters.
These free-wheeling town hall meetings or press conferences – where curve
balls can be common, and mistakes more often can be made – now seem like a
rarity as the Clinton campaign savors and protects her lead in national opinion
polls. She will take questions here and there that reporters toss her, but she has
not held a full-blown news conference since January.
While many voters who attend Clinton rallies appear fond of her and hardly seem
ready to pounce, some voters – and supporters of her rivals – will probably turn
more aggressive as the nomination fight intensifies, raising the likelihood that
Mrs. Clinton could face hostile challenges from an audience member.
The lack of dialogue is distressing to voters like Mr. Gran, a senior at Iowa
State University, and his friend and classmate Adam Faircloth, who came to the
Ames rally here together.
“I could’ve just watched her speech on YouTube – what’s the point of coming to
Iowa and giving the same speech over and over without taking questions from
real people?” Mr. Gran said.
“I believe in a public conversation where politicians actually engage with the
public,” he continued, bringing to memory Mrs. Clinton’s promise, earlier in the
campaign, to have “a conversation” with Americans about the future of the
country. (At that same, she tweaked President Bush by saying that conversation
had become “a little one-sided.”)
For the record, Mr. Gran said he was an undecided voter who was drawn most to
Dennis Kucinich and Barack Obama, as well as Republican candidate Ron Paul.
While Mr. Gran said he wanted to offer a perfectly straightforward question about
the environment, Mrs. Clinton did face the perils of unpredictable questioning on
Sunday.
At one of her events, she got into a sparring match with an Iowa man in the
audience over Iran, and at one point accused him of being a plant for a rival
campaign, according to videotape of the encounter. To some ears she sounded a
little too hot, like someone who sees antagonists a bit too easily. When the man
took offense and said he was not a plant – indeed, he had attended an Obama
rally on Friday and spoke of Iowa as a “reality check” in the presidential process
– Mrs. Clinton apologized to him.
It brought to mind her edgy encounter in Las Vegas in August when an audience
member (and, it turned out later, conservative Clinton critic) accused her of trying
to foist socialized medicine on America. Under the gun, Mrs. Clinton was pointed
and quick in defending herself – though she was also rather curt. At one point
she said that if the questioner was “interested in being educated instead of being
rhetorical,” she could put him in touch with her staff.
It should be noted that Mrs. Clinton at least engaged the Vegas critic and the
Iowan on Sunday, unlike some candidates who just cut off hostile questions
altogether. I saw John McCain at an immigration event in New York City last year
where he responded to a tendentious question from the audience by saying, “No
– next question.”
But, as Mr. Nagourney concluded in his piece today, her front-runner strategy will
increasingly be put to the test – as will the patience of Iowa and New Hampshire
voters who still want candidates to answer their questions.