Democratic Party leaders in Iowa are saying that Hillary Clinton is not their first choice to head the party's 2016 ticket,
The Wall Street Journal reported.
Iowa hosts the first-in-the-nation contest for the presidency in about a year's time. Leading Democrats in the state's 99 counties seem to favor a more liberal standard-bearer with fewer ties to Wall Street. There is also opposition to what some see as a Clinton "coronation."
Others question whether Clinton's time has passed and whether she could win in a general election. If nothing else, they want Democratic candidates to debate economic policy, according to the Journal.
"I admire Hillary, she'd be a great president, but you know, she isn't my first choice I guess," Jennifer Herrington, a Democratic leader in southwest Iowa, told the Journal.
Clinton leads any potential primary opponent, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, by almost 50 points.
In 2008, Clinton started out as the front-runner only to be defeated by Barack Obama, then a junior senator from Illinois.
"The Hillary Clinton inevitability talk is the same thing we heard in 2008, and the caucus-goers in Iowa chose a different route," Joe Judge, chairman of the Democratic Party in Monroe County, told the Journal. "The field is wide open for that again."
MoveOn.org is pressuring Warren to enter the race, though she says
she wants to stay in the Senate.
The more candidates and interest in the caucuses, the easier it is to develop a volunteer base and for the state party to raise money.
"When we have these candidates out here running for office, we invite them to county dinners and the numbers swell at these events," Tom Henderson, a Democratic leader in Des Moines, told the Journal.
Clinton can be assured that Iowa Democratic leaders, even if they are less than enthusiastic, would back her candidacy.
Still, "there's always the nagging feeling that her ship may have sailed," said Tom Swartz of the Marshall County Democrats, the Journal reported.
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