Candidates play fair in Iowa

Former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who endorsed her this week and wore a straw hat to shade him from the blazing sun, accompanied her. Everywhere Clinton walked, large crowds followed her to get a photograph, a handshake or a quick hello. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a Republican, donned a red embroidered apron to flip pork burgers over sizzling grills.

A big chunk of the audience of 2,100 cheered, but many did not. “That is something for them to work out”. “I love it”, she said.

The public might also be exhausted of the drama that always seems to go hand-in-hand with the Clintons; this time, it’s their family charitable foundation and the email controversy. Many wanted to hear more from her rivals.

Sanders, whose recent appearance at a Seattle event was disrupted by activists with the Black Lives Matter movement, also took steps to emphasize his civil rights record. Clinton is dismissing the controversies as “partisan games”.

Clinton is scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in open sessions on October 22, where she’s guaranteed to be grilled before the cameras about her emails.

Clinton, by contrast, took her time, spending about an hour and a half at the fair as she inched along and people approached.

And Iowa is especially important for Clinton as she campaigns to win the home of the first presidential caucuses.

These are all facts. “Great place. I’ve really developed a relationship with it”.

“We’ve got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, $15 an hour”, he said. “Those messages disappear all by themselves”, Clinton said at the democratic Wing Ding Dinner in Iowa.

Later, Clinton went after Republicans, who continue to probe the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

The former secretary of state stood at the fence of a dirty paddock to meet a shorthorn cow named Maggie. Chafee said. “This is a good test and I ask you voters to do your homework and sift through all the issues and you decide if it’s all about the money”.

“She’s doing it. Right here”, he said, pointing down at the ground. His alienation of many Hispanic voters with his harsh comments about immigration, coupled with his latest misogynistic spat with Megyn Kelly, will only further damage his support among women and Latinos, two crucial constituencies heading into 2016. “I love it”, she said. “I’ve even offered to answer questions for months before Congress. I’ve just provided my server to the Justice Department”. Iowans, who will host the first presidential nomination contest on Feb 1, said they can’t recall a time when so much political star power arrived at the fair on a single day.

There’s nothing on the server, which has been sitting in a warehouse in New Jersey since 2013.

Again, she handed Republicans a way of highlighting something that has been a major drag on her poll numbers – with a clear majority of Americans saying that they don’t view Clinton as trustworthy. It’s unclear what she and her attorney did over the following weeks to fully secure the sensitive data, according to people familiar with federal probes into the situation.

This past week, the inspector general for the intelligence community determined that there was top secret information in just a minute sampling of the 30,000 emails on her private server turned over to the government.