Clinton campaigns for underdog status

As Hillary Clinton prepares to announce her long-awaited second bid for the White House, her advisers are touting a new strategy to dispel the air of inevitability that hangs over her candidacy.

Through smaller, more intimate events and a heavier focus on Mrs Clinton's life story, her team hopes to connect with voters in a far more personal way than she did during 2008's failed bid.

In Iowa, where the memories of that devastating defeat to President Barack Obama are still keenly felt, part of that rebrand involves casting Mrs Clinton in an unlikely role: the underdog.

It was in the Hawkeye State where the wheels came off what had once been expected to be a procession to the Democratic nomination.

Seven years later, Team Clinton's efforts to rebuild bridges with party activists and operatives across Iowa are in many ways a microcosm of the broader challenges facing her 2016 campaign.

How do you get voters excited about a candidate who has been in the public eye for more than two decades, and who most people already have a strong opinion about?

How do you foster the kind of up-close and personal access voters crave with a figure whose every move will be trailed by hundreds of reporters?

How do you combat Clinton fatigue, given the possibility of another matchup with a scion of the Bush political dynasty, former Florida governor Jeb Bush?

As the first state in the nation to weigh in on the presidential race through its caucus system, Iowa has long held an outsized role in the US political landscape.

While it has a mixed record in choosing both parties' nominee, and is frequently criticised for being too white, too evangelical and too rural to be truly representative of the broader electorate, Iowa is a critical early test of candidates' grassroots organisation, and their ability to make their messages resonate with rank-and-file voters.

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"I expect her to conduct a full-throated effort here, with all the resources that a successful operation demands," said Jerry Crawford, Mrs Clinton's Midwest co-chairman in 2008 and her husband's state director in 1992 and 1996. "I expect her to fight like an underdog for every vote."

Mrs Clinton did not just lose in Iowa in 2008 - she was thumped.

Mr Obama took 38 per cent of the delegates awarded, carrying counties stretching from the banks of the Mississippi river in the east to Iowa's western border with Nebraska.

The former secretary of state limped in third, behind the now disgraced John Edwards. While she mounted an impressive comeback in New Hampshire and remained competitive in the race, she was forced to end her quest in June amid insurmountable odds and a dwindling cash pile.

Among the Democratic activists that are crucial to building momentum in Iowa, doubts persist. She hates Iowa, they say. She does not like mixing with ordinary folk.

At a party meeting in Johnson County last week, where Mr Obama won a 52 per cent share of the caucus support in 2008 to Mrs Clinton's 20 per cent, attendees expressed concern that the lack of a strong Democratic challenger to the former secretary of state was already dampening enthusiasm.

In early statewide polls, Mrs Clinton holds as much as a 40-point advantage over potential rivals such as former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. The darling of the party's progressive wing, Elizabeth Warren, has repeatedly said she will not enter the race.

"I just want a strong field, so we can have a real debate about the issues at stake," said Mike Carberry, a county supervisor.

Through Ready for Hillary, a pro-Clinton political action committee, Mrs Clinton's supporters have worked hard over the past 18 months to dispel those concerns.

Two of her chief strategists, Robbie Mook and Marlon Marshall, met with leading Iowa Democrats last week ahead. The campaign has already tapped Matt Paul, a popular longtime aide to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, to serve as the state campaign's director.

Gone will be the stilted set piece rallies, aides insist. Instead, Mrs Clinton will aim to craft a new connection with voters through small meetings and one-on-one conversations. She was received enthusiastically on her last trip to the state in September, at former senator Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry, but she has not visited since.

"We want voters to hear the story of her whole life, from birth to secretary of state," said one.

Only a handful of people know the exact date and time when Mrs Clinton will finally pull the trigger on her 2016 bid, most likely through social media.

But some things are certain. Her campaign will be long. It will be gruelling. And it will wind through Iowa.

"Whatever mistakes she made in 2007, she's a fast learner," said Julie Stewart, chair of the Dallas County Democrats. "She didn't get where she is now by being stupid."

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