Hillary Clinton on Caucus Day: Staying on Message

Forum Name General Discussion: Politics
Topic subject Hillary Clinton on Caucus Day: Staying on Message
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3934738#3934738
3934738, Hillary Clinton on Caucus Day: Staying on Message
Posted by DeepModem Mom on Thu Jan-03-08 10:04 AM

NYT: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Staying on Message
By PATRICK HEALY
Published: January 3, 2008

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa

....By no means is Mrs. Clinton’s campaign faltering in Iowa. But it has flickered at times, because of gaffes and strategic missteps, and neither she nor her advisers can predict whether Thursday’s caucuses will conclude with her political future strong and clear or on the fritz.

Mrs. Clinton, the marquee name in the Democratic field, has not shown any hint of anxiety in these final days of Iowa. True to her methodical form, she rarely deviates from her stump speech, even though parts of it sound like a résumé recitation, and even though she sometimes sounds a little bored delivering it. The crowds seem to love it all the same: she is drawing several hundred people per event, although many of them sound and look like supporters as opposed to the undecided voters whom all the campaigns are courting.

Still, after all these months, Mrs. Clinton is a workhorse on the trail. Aides (and reporters) half her age are more tired than she is. She works the rope line with gusto. Her voice, while hoarse at times, has held thus far. The fact that she has not lost her voice is helped by her mastery of a low, hushed tone — almost a whisper — that she and her consultants have been trying to perfect for months.

While Mrs. Clinton still sometimes shouts, the new softness in her voice adds impact to some of her stories, like one about an Army captain she met who was despairing about head trauma that had damaged his concentration. “‘Where do I go to get my brain back?’” she recalls him saying, in that whisper of hers, as some audience members audibly sigh, touched by her tale and the implied promise that help is on the way.

“Are you ready for change? Are you ready for quality affordable health care for every American? Are you ready for a new energy policy on a day that oil has hit $100 a barrel? Are you ready to end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home? Are you ready to caucus tomorrow night to put us on a path to get that done?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/us/politics/03clinton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin