Clinton says she’s ready to be president

CEDAR RAPIDS - With the finish line in sight, Hillary Clinton went back to the basics Saturday night in Cedar Rapids, touching on all the themes she and other Democratic presidential hopefuls have been campaigning on for the past year - or longer.

The difference, she told more than 1,200 people at Washington High School, is that she's ready to get those Democratic priorities done.

'This campaign is like a job interview and you have to decide who is ready to be president,” she said as the crowd drowned her out with shouts of 'You” and 'I'm with her.”

If you will caucus for me Monday night,” Clinton continued, 'if stand up for me her, I will promise you this: I will stand for you, I will fight for you and I will work my heart out for you.”

Mary Campbell had been working her heart out for Clinton earlier in the day, knocking on doors to get people to caucus Feb. 1.

'I shed blood for Hillary,” the retired schoolteacher from Bertram said, explaining she was knocked down by a dog and threatened by a man who was not a Clinton fan.

Campbell definitely would hire Clinton, although she admitted to being surprised to be supporting her.

'I would have been a Bernie Sanders supporter,” Campbell said, adding that she was a Dennis Kucinich supporter in the past.

But it was the 'ready” factor that convinced her this is Clinton's time.

'She has a definite plan and knows how to implement them,” Campbell said.

It not just that Clinton is ready for the job, but many supporters said they are ready - more than ready - to elect a woman president.

Tamala Choma 'checked off Barack Obama” eight years ago 'so now I'm ready for a woman, breaking that barrier.”

'If not now, when?” added Linda Anderson of Cedar Rapids.

However, both said here's more to it than shattering the glass ceiling in the Oval Office.

'Qualifications, qualifications, qualifications,” Anderson said. 'Stack her qualifications against the myriad Republicans and she surpasses all of them.”

'It's her policies that support women like pay equity,” said Choma attorney who moved from San Diego to Davenport just in time to participate in the caucus campaign.

Although he defeated her in the Iowa caucuses eight years ago, Clinton said her plans are to build on what President Barack Obama has accomplished over the past seven years.

'There's a lot of work for us to do here. I'm very committed to fighting hard on of these fronts,” she said about increasing investments in education and combating climate change, raising the minimum wage and family incomes as well as raising taxes on the rich to pay for her priorities like debt-free college education plan and expanding health care coverage to 100 percent of Americans.

Remind the audience she's a 'progressive who likes to get things done,” Clinton said that's why the debate over health care she's having with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is so important.

'We both have the same goals - we want universal coverage,” she said, noting that 'before it was called Obamacare it was called 'Hillarycare.”

'We have fought too hard, we have fought too long,” Clinton said. 'I'm going to fix what's wrong with the Affordable Care Act,” such as reducing out-of-pocket costs and prescription drug costs.

'We cannot start over, my friends. We can't throw this country back into gridlock. People can't wait for us to have another 20-year debate over what we are going to do about health care,” she said.

Clinton was introduced by her daughter, Chelsea.

'I'm so proud to support my Mom in my campaign,” she said. The 2016 election will be the first time she's voted as a mother. When she thinks about her 16-month-old daughter, Charlotte, and her future brother or sister, 'I can't think of a better person to stand up to fight for them.”

After a couple of minutes, Chelsea said that because she is pregnant she was going to leave the stage and sit down.

Her father, the former president, delivered a condensed version of a speech he has been delivering around the state in recent weeks. His wife of nearly 45 years is a 'world-class change-maker” who has left everything she has touched better than she found it, President Clinton said.