For Hillary Clinton, the stakes "couldn't be higher" in Iowa
DES MOINES Trekking across the eastern half of Iowa on Monday, Hillary Clinton painted a picture of what the country would look like with a Republican president.
"If a Republican walks into that White House," she said at the first of three campaign stops, in Davenport, "we will see the kind of progress, the hard work, that so many Iowans and Americans have had to do ripped away."
Clinton zeroed in on the risk Republicans pose to the Affordable Care Act, ahead of an expected House vote on legislation to repeal President Obama's signature health care law.
"They're willing to turn their backs on 19 million Americans," she said. "If there's a Republican sitting there, it will be repealed and then we will have to start all over again."
As the first contests of the year grow nearer, Clinton's assessment of the implications of this year's presidential election has worked its way to the center of her message. Iowans will cast the first votes in less than four weeks and, while she is holding a lead in the polls here, Clinton is aggressively courting voters in the Hawkeye State.
Following her event in Davenport, which drew about 400 people from the Quad Cities area, Clinton spoke in Cedar Rapids.
"There could not be a starker difference between the kind of country that I want to see for all of us and what the Republicans are promising," she said, adding that the voters in the room should "think hard about that."
She repeatedly thanked her supporters for reaching out to their friends and neighbors about the upcoming caucus and reminded many, as she shook their hands and took selfies along the ropeline, that she needs their help.
Joe Barron, a retiree who lives in Davenport, said he has only caucused once before -- "and I think it was 30 years ago," he said -- but he is re-registering as a Democrat this year so that he can caucus for Clinton.
"I admire her," he told CBS News, adding that he believes that her policy plans are more measured than those of her main rival, Bernie Sanders.
But Clinton chose not to focus on her Democratic rivals on Monday, even as her one of her top campaign aides issued a statement to reporters calling Sanders' approach to Wall Street reform into question.
Sanders' team has made significant new investments in its campaign infrastructure in recent months in the form of new television and radio advertisements, polling and staffing. Sanders spent his New Year's Eve with his supporters in Des Moines and he, too, emphasized the outsize role that Iowans play.
"You here in Iowa have a chance to make 2016 a year that people in the future will look back on and say, 'thank you, Iowa, for leading the political revolution,'" he said.
Clinton will campaign in Osage, Sioux City and Council Bluffs on Tuesday before a handful of surrogates, including actress Lena Dunham and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, land in the state later in the week. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, will also make two stops in Iowa on Thursday.