As Hillary Clinton prepares for her big announcement and her first trip to Iowa as a candidate, some of her rivals are already ahead of her in the Hawkeye State.
Maryland’s former Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley has been making all the moves necessary to present himself as a sensible alternative to Hillary Clinton and he has visited Iowa already.
After launching his prototype campaign website, O’Malley visited Iowa 24 times. He set up a small campaign office with one full-time staffer. O’Malley additionally spent some $40,000 to help local candidates.
O’Malley has also helped fund 14 workers for different candidates across Iowa, one candidate of whom was Democrat Jack Hatch who recently lost a bid to unseat the state’s Republican Governor, Terry Branstad. O’Malley gave Hatch three staffers for his campaign.
O’Malley also seems to be warming to a particular attack on Hillary, painting her as old news.
“I think the people of Iowa wake up every morning looking toward the future, and they believe inherently that we’re served by new leadership,” O’Malley said last week in Des Moines.
Another possible Democratic candidate, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb, has also spent some time in Iowa as he mulls a run for the nomination. Webb was recently in Iowa giving an address at a Des Moines union hall.
Webb also hired an Iowa campaign coordinator. The former senator tapped Rania Batrice, a former John Edwards operative, to head Iowa campaign coordinator, to organize for him in Iowa.
Certainly everyone assumes the nomination is Hillary’s for the taking, but there are those voices in the Democrat Party who don’t want a Hillary coronation. O’Malley and Webb hope to capitalize on that desire.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter: @warnerthuston. Email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com