Clinton vows to ‘defend our rights’ during ‘short and sweet’ speech at UI

IOWA CITY - In a speech on the University of Iowa campus that lasted less than five minutes Thursday night, Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said she's proud of the progress made under President Barack Obama and vowed to 'work as hard as I know how to take it to the Republicans to win the election in 2016.”

'You know, people in Iowa literally are being watched not just around our country but around the world because you get the first chance to decide who should be the next president of the United States,” Clinton told the raucous crowd of 1,700-some gathered in the Iowa Memorial Union just a week-and-a-half before Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses Feb. 1.

Clinton's appearance followed a brief performance by pop singer Demi Lovato and was billed as an organizing event.

During the rally, Clinton asked, 'How are we going to defend our rights, our civil rights, human rights, women rights, gay rights?

'How are we going to take on those big special interests who are always trying to put the wall against the kind of progress we believe in?” she asked. 'I'm going to take them on, whether they are insurance companies or banks, drug companies, or the gun lobby.”

But Clinton offered few details and at least a few of those in the audience wished she'd talked longer.

'I would have loved to have seen her for longer,” said UI sophomore Ariana Gevov, 19, who waited a couple hours in line for the event. 'But, honestly, anything to see her. I was happy with it.”

Many, like Gevov, were forgiving of the 'short and sweet” delivery.

'It's just getting the message across,” Gevov said. 'You can always use a lot of fluff words that other candidates are spitting out. But she spoke for five minutes, and the whole crowd was enthralled by it.”

Clinton also vowed to fight to get the economy working for everyone, to keep the country safe, to make college education affordable and to address the issue of mounting student debt.

'And I would be so thrilled and honored if you came and caucused for me,” she said.

Clinton made her remarks just hours after a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll showed Democratic rival Bernie Sanders overtaking her as the preferred candidate among likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa, although she retains a 51 percent to 38 percent margin over him nationally.

Earlier in the day, Clinton deflected an 'establishment” label Sanders leveled against her, asserting during a CNN interview that he's spent more years as an elected official than she has.

After the Thursday night event, UI junior Julia Kilian, 21, said little could keep her from caucusing for Clinton in February - although she thought her appearance Thursday night would last longer.

Veronica Howsare, of Solon, brought her teenage daughter and several friends to see Clinton and wondered whether Clinton's voice was a little 'raspy,” perhaps playing into the shortness of her speech. Howsare's daughter, Isabelle, 13, was in awe to see her.

'She didn't need to speak that long because she got her point across,” Isabelle said.