Clinton stays aggressive

By J. Patrick Coolican

Monday, Oct. 22, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner in the 2008 presidential race, came to Las Vegas on Sunday clearly confident the race is hers to win, but she and her campaign have also recognized that they mustn't stop showing love for Democratic primary voters and caucus-goers, who tend to come from the party's liberal base.

With their early caucus, Nevada Democrats got a full dose of presidential candidates this weekend, as Clinton rivals former Sen. John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama also held events.

Clinton began the day at the East Las Vegas Community Center to talk health care. What was once a liability for Clinton is now a strength. Her failure to achieve health care reform in 1993 and 1994 is seen as her biggest setback and a major catalyst to the Republicans' 1994 mid-term electoral victory, but now Clinton is viewed by Democratic voters, according to polls, as the most trustworthy and likely to get major reform passed, even though she was the last of the three major candidates to make a formal proposal.

Health care is at the top of many Americans' issue lists, especially among Democratic voters, and with good reason. One in five Nevadans is uninsured, and the number of uninsured nationally has increased more than 15 percent since 2001.

"People are standing up across Nevada and across America and saying, 'Enough.' It is time to have quality and affordable health care for all Americans," she said.

Clinton's plan would mean no change for people who like the coverage they have. Everyone else would have the opportunity to buy into the plan offered to members of Congress. She would use tax credits to help businesses cover their employees. It's similar to what Edwards and Obama have offered.

Her presentation offers contrasts from her last go-around with health care. The key words and phrase she uses to describe it are "simple" and "choices" and "no new bureaucracy." Her '90s-era plan was portrayed, sometimes wrongly, as the end of consumer choice in medicine and the beginning of a new, massive government program.

Clinton said that a coalition of medical professionals and advocates for the middle class would need to stand up to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. (Despite her tough rhetoric, she's been the recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from insurance companies and drug makers, as well as doctors and hospitals.)

At the health care event, she was joined on the stage by a woman with multiple sclerosis and a breast cancer survivor, who have both had to deal with some of the absurdities and financial hardships attributed to the American health care system.

At a later rally at the new Springs Preserve, Clinton gave her stump speech, which is focused on four themes: Restoring America's reputation around the world, restoring the American middle class, reforming the government and reclaiming the future for today's children.

On the first count, she said she would send Republicans and Democrats alike around the world as her emissaries to tell allies and potential allies that "the era of cowboy diplomacy is over."

She would conduct a bipartisan foreign policy and reject the "radicalism" of the Bush years, she said.

Here Clinton is portraying herself as the conciliatory centrist, which she can do as the front-runner. Her potential opponents on the Republican side, where the race is fluid, have no choice but to throw red meat to the Republican base.

But Clinton also seems to recognize that she can take nothing for granted with the Democratic base, who to a significant degree will decide the nominee. So twice she mentioned no-bid government contracts for Vice President Dick Cheney's company, Halliburton. That's catnip for the Democratic base.

And in an interview with the Sun she said that her recent vote to call Iran's Revolutiony Guard a terrorist organization was a way to use sanctions and diplomacy before military action. And she noted a measure she proposed with Virginia Sen. Jim Webb that would make clear the president has no authorization to attack Iran.

In Iowa, the only early state where Clinton doesn't have a clear lead in the polls, Clinton recently sent out a mail piece to Democrats explaining her vote on the issue.