In Iowa, Hillary Clinton Battles the Ghosts of 2008

Hillary Clinton had just exited the Iowa State Fair grounds on Saturday when I ambled over to the fair’s fabled soapbox and started gabbing with Michelle Gadbois and Tracy Garland. A married couple, both bone-deep Democrats, they were at the soapbox to catch Bernie Sanders, who would shortly be uncorking the blistering jeremiad that constitutes his stump speech. But Gadbois and Garland were not, in fact, #feelthebern-ers. They were Hillary fans—with caveats. “I want to be for her,” Tracy said, “but only if she pulls her head out of her ass and gets real.”

The projection of realness—naturalism, authenticity, approachability—on Clinton’s part has been a central aim of her campaign from the start. And especially so in Iowa, where the perception of her as distant, bloodless, and imperious played no small part in her crushing third-place finish in the 2008 caucuses. Her swing through the Hawkeye State this past weekend was replete with efforts at being (or, at least, seeming) real (or, at least, real-ish). She toured the fair without a rope line, wading into the crowd. She chatted and took selfies with voters. She gnawed on a pork chop on a stick. She gawked at the famous butter cow and petted a real one. Asked by a reporter to name her biggest campaign error so far, she smiled and said, “I’m just havin’ a good time.”