Hillary Clinton's Iowa swing comes to an end—with a roundtable on small businesses in a Des Moines suburb. In her wake, Clinton reveals a few more details about her goals—and a commitment to run a humbler, more attentive race than her losing bid eight years ago. Josh Robin filed this report.
Hillary Clinton confesses she loves to wonk out.
In a fruit and vegetable distribution center, the statistics flew out by the bushel. She spent about an hour and a half, talking business.
Clinton praises the economic recovery under President Barack Obama's watch, but she's also peeling away from her fellow Democrat, too. She says some are left behind.
"Now America ranks 46th in the world in how hard it is to start a new business. We need to be—we have to be number one again," Clinton said.
Other positions are emerging: paid leave for new mothers, she broadly backs Obamacare and would push for immigration reform. None of those opinions is particularly controversial or detailed.
What is surprising—compared to eight years ago—is how often Clinton now talks about her childhood church, her family struggles, and her gender—like revealing what it was like to be pregnant, and working as an Arkansas lawyer more than three decades ago.
"So I'd walk down the hall going to the conference room or the library or something and I'd see one of the partners coming and he'd go "oh-uh-uh" and just kind of look away. So we had no leave program, nothing," she said.
Those with her emerged with good things to say.
"I thought she was very receptive and had an open ear," said Jennifer Hansen.
Katie Stocking owns a local interactive advertising agency and politically, is an independent. She says she was given no talking points.
"They literally said, 'Please, say anything you want. She legitimately wants to know what you are facing day to day.' And I was honestly very sincerely impressed with that," said Stockings.
That's exactly what the Clinton campaign says it wants in these early days of her race for the White House: to be seen as humble, fighting for every vote and listening more than talking.