Clinton’s loyal women backers wary of a 2008 Iowa repeat

The polls are giving Bernie Sanders, the 74-year-old self-described socialist, a slender lead in Iowa and an advantage of 19 percentage points in New Hampshire.

At the last shared appearance before the February 1 caucuses, Sanders and Clinton clashed on issues they’ve quibbled over for months.

“We will win here in Iowa if the voter turnout is high and frankly if the voter turnout is not high we’re going to be struggling”, he said.

“If Michael Bloomberg – and I have nothing against him personally – were a normal person with the same ideas, he would never in a million years have thought about running for president”, Sanders said. Sanders said in order to make this nation a social democracy that wages war against the rich, he wants to bring back “the era of big government”, and cause government spending to increase about 10 times the amount the government planned to spend on ObamaCare.

“Almost all of the polls that – and polls are polls, they go up, they go down – but nearly all of the polls that have come out suggest that I am a much stronger candidate against the Republicans than is Hillary Clinton”, he told voters during a January 19 town hall meeting in Underwood, Iowa. He said Trump was scared of Kelly, telling supporters that skipping the debate was like refusing a job interview.

A day after nabbing the endorsement from his former primary rival, Cruz planned seven stops with Perry in central Iowa, joined by other bold-name conservatives backing Cruz. “You’re fired”, Cruz said, riffing on Trump’s famous rejoinder from his reality TV show “The Apprentice”.

The White House said later that Sanders would meet informally with Obama in the Oval Office on Wednesday and “there will be no formal agenda”.

She called on her past experience pushing for universal healthcare with her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

“Hillary Clinton would be happy to participate in a debate in New Hampshire if the other candidates agree, which would allow the DNC to sanction the debate”, Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said.

“If I’m the candidate best able to do that, you can bet your bottom buck we’re going to have a whole lot of establishment Democrats on board”, Sanders said. Martin O’Malley polls at just 2%. But winning in Iowa is key to Clinton because in two weeks from today it will be the New Hampshire primary and it is very likely that Sanders will win The Granite State race.

Josh Lederman reported from Washington.