DES MOINES, Dec. 3 -- Just two months ago, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York appeared to have turned a corner in Iowa. Now, as the race here enters its final month, she is once again fighting to fend off concerns that have dogged her from the start of her campaign in the state.
"Around the time of the October poll, what preceded it was sort of a golden age for her," said J. Ann Selzer, the director of the respected Iowa Poll. "She was in control of the message, the debates were going well and she was grinding down the naysayers. It sounds like it didn't take much for that image to stumble. All those things that were lurking there have come back."
Selzer described a cluster of concerns that voters here have about Clinton. She is seen as capable, experienced and the most knowledgeable about the world. But her negatives are significantly higher than those of any of her leading rivals. Asked which candidate they would be most disappointed to see as their nominee in the Iowa Poll, Democrats put Clinton at the top of the list, with 27 percent citing her. "That's more people saying she would be the worst choice than who say would be the best choice," Selzer said. She called it "that 'ick' factor."
Clinton's response has been to turn aggressive. For the second day in a row, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in national polls sharply attacked her leading rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, using some of the harshest language of the campaign. Arguing that her campaign is in a "very strong position," Clinton hammered Obama for offering "false hopes" rather than action. She predicted that voters will want, in her words, "a doer, not a talker."
Obama offered only the briefest of responses at an event in Des Moines on Monday. "It's silly season," he said. "I understand she's been quoting my kindergarten teacher in Indonesia," a reference to an essay titled "I Want to Become President" that Obama supposedly wrote as a child. He declined to say anything more.
