Hill-A-Copter Down

Ottumwa, Iowa

"You know, there's a lot of talk about change in this election," Hillary Clinton told a Des Moines gathering of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. "And there should be. But you know, change happens, whether you do anything or not. The world is always changing. Our challenge is: How do we master that change and make it work for America again? Everybody's got ideas about change. You know, some people think you get change by demanding it. Some people think you get change by hoping for it. But I believe you get change by working really hard. . . . I've been a change-maker for 35 years."

During a four-minute stretch Clinton used the word change 15 times. Which is exactly what her campaign has done in Iowa over the last few weeks.

Clinton had been leading the polls here since the end of summer. She had run an error-free campaign, with the exception of one debate gaffe where she endorsed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. But Barack Obama began rising in late August, and in the last week of November he passed Clinton in some polls. So Clinton made some changes.

In a daring display of brazenness, she attacked Obama for both fundraising improprieties and excessive ambition. New Hampshire co-chair Bill Shaheen was trotted out to question the past drug use Obama himself had freely admitted in a memoir published 12 years ago--and was promptly jettisoned from the campaign when the attack backfired. Clinton even ditched the campaign's theme song, Celine Dion's "You and I." And after months of promoting the idea of "strength and experience" on the stump, she pivoted to talk about her biography and the mantra of "change."

The "change" campaign was rolled out during a five-day, 99-county barnstorming tour which saw Clinton hopping from town to town in the "Hill-A-Copter." (This was not the first ill-named vehicle on the Clinton campaign; in the fall she took a short tour aboard a bus dubbed "The Middle Class Express," which sounds like cut-price airline seating.)

Joined by President Clinton, Magic Johnson, retired general Wesley Clark, and other surrogates, Clinton remade her pitch to Iowans, in both form and substance. She abandoned the lectern and took to striding back and forth across the stage, microphone in hand. She hammered the change theme at every opportunity. Her campaign banners now proclaimed "Hillary: the Change we Need!" and "Working For Change, Working For You." Even the folks doing introductions were roped into the act. In Ottumwa, the poor Ordinary American introducing Clinton had trouble delivering the ham-fisted text given to her. She haltingly read, "I know that . . . Hillary is . . . a . . . change-agent because . . . she has been doing this all her life."

The problem for Clinton is that she follows her call for change by citing a failure to bring change, her 1993 attempt at creating government-run health care. "When I was fortunate enough to go to Washington to be part of my husband's team," she says, "we tackled one of the hardest problems we have: health care. . . . And we weren't successful the first time, but you know what? I'm glad we tried. And I learned a lot, because we were standing up for what was right." The dissonance is jarring--though, who knows? The "Hillary as Change-Maker" theme calls to mind George W. Bush's response to a McCain surge early in the 2000 primary season: Bush reinvented himself as the "Reformer with Results"--and went on to win the nomination.

While health care is the centerpiece of the new Clinton campaign, she still mentions a few other issues. One of her big applause lines is, "We are going to end the unfunded mandate known as No Child Left Behind!" The crowds love it, although no one seems aware that she voted for No Child Left Behind. And while her speeches are mostly free of policy substance, she paused midway through her five-day tour to roll out a few nanny-state proposals: a 90-day halt to home foreclosures, a five-year freeze on rate adjustments for subprime mortgages, and federal assistance for weatherizing homes.

On Iraq, however, Clinton really does seem to be changing. For most of the campaign she has tried to evade the question of Iraq, mentioning it only in passing. To this end she developed an effective tactic: Her standard line is to say that as president she will "bring our troops home from Iraq"--here there is always tremendous applause, but she barrels through it, quickly adding--"as quickly and responsibly as possible." In practice, it's difficult, and sometimes impossible, to hear that important qualifier.