by Jason George
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – Sen. Hillary Clinton kicked off a five-day blitz across Iowa Sunday, telling a crowd that her campaign was “energized and picking up momentum” in its final push toward the Jan. 3 caucus.
After a week of disappointing poll numbers and the in-state surge of Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton’s morning began on a high note, when 238,000 copies of The Des Moines Register hit the doorsteps of Iowa homes, featuring a front-page endorsement of Clinton for the Democrats and Sen. John McCain for the Republicans.
“It was an important event in this process and I am very grateful that they zeroed in on the work that needs to be done by the next president, by my vision of our country, my plans for change and my will to lead,” she said in front of about 250 supporters at an Council Bluffs high school.
The Register editorial also focused on Clinton’s “preparedness” to assume the responsibility of the presidency, contrasting her with Obama’s “relative inexperience,” a theme the Clinton campaign has highlighted recently here and in New Hampshire.
“It all comes down to one question,” Clinton said. “Who is ready and able to make the changes we need, starting on day one, at the White House?”
“You are,” the crowd shouted.
“Well, some people believe you make change by demanding it. Some people you make change by hoping for it,” she in a veiled reference to Obama, whose name she did not mention during her 35-minute stump speech.
“I believe you make change by working hard for it.”
Clinton’s “Every County Counts Tour” runs from today through Thursday, and includes campaign stops in all 99 counties by Clinton and supporters. Clinton will travel to only 12 counties herself, buzzing across the state in a helicopter the campaign has dubbed the “Hill-a-Copter.”
In Council Bluffs, former Sen. Bob Kerrey joined Clinton on stage, saying he was endorsing her candidacy because of her values and her political resolve.
“She has been standing up to the extreme wing of the Republican party as they tried to tear her down and she’s still standing,” he said.
Kerrey was the governor of Nebraska, just across the Missouri River from Council Bluffs, in the early 1980s and a U.S. Senator for the state from 1989 to 2001. He ran for the presidency in 1992, but lost in the primaries to another Clinton