Small stops and a very big bubble

MONTICELLO - Some have cracked wise about what Hillary Clinton's campaign 2016 slogan should be. After watching her first Iowa event this week, I'd submit 'Suspend Your Disbelief.” Watching through a tightly focused lens, I saw the likely Democratic nominee holding an intimate, substantive panel discussion with students and educators at Kirkwood Community College's Monticello Center, in the auto tech shop, no less. There were unannounced coffee stops and chats with 'everyday” Iowans.

It looked, as many have written, small-scale.

But from a wider angle, you got a different picture.

The Monticello campus was crawling with video-shooting, laptop-banging media as far as the eye could see. More reporters showed up than could fit in the building, so many couldn't get in. When the panel discussion began, rapid fire shots and flashes from a legion of cameras came like a spring downpour.

'The most I've been involved in any sort of media is a picture from a track meet in the local paper,” one of the panelists, Andrew Lorimer, a senior at Springville who is headed to the Naval Academy, told a gaggle of journos crowded around him. He looked impressed and overwhelmed.

Clinton arrived in a jet black van, sort of a weekend-style armored personnel carrier. The joint had to be locked down as she arrived for security reasons. Gawkers, maybe even a few everyday Iowans, were kept at bay. True, the events were small. But the Clinton media and access-control bubble remained very large and formidable.

Don't get me wrong. From my perch in the auto shop, standing next to the Coolant Transfusion System, I can tell you the panel discussion offered genuine, compelling moments. There was Monticello junior Ellen Schlarmann describing how she'll accumulate 48 college credits by the time she graduates, thanks to Kirkwood's cooperation with her school. Bethany Moore, a single mom attending Kirkwood asked Clinton what she would do to help parents cover the many costs of going back to school. Clinton talked about scholarships for single parents she helped create in Arkansas.

Central City High Principal Jason McLaughlin explained how students face much more pressure than 20 years ago, when the economy was good and 'jobs were plentiful.”

'I remember,” Clinton said.

Diane Temple, an English teacher at Maquoketa Valley and Kirkwood, also described how she's watched students change during her 21 years of teaching.

'Our students are bolder today. I think they are more willing to take risks. I think they are more apprehensive about the future,” Temple said.

It gave Clinton a good chance to highlight the issues and problems she sees at the heart of our stubborn national apprehensions. Eventually, she's also going to need solutions. They're going to have to be bold and even risky to break through the bubble. And they need to be optimistic solutions, to contrast a Republican message that has, so far, been steeped in outrage.

Otherwise, she becomes 2000 Al Gore, whose campaign was drowned by its endless calculating search for authenticity and drowned-out by sideshows, like a national conversation on the power of earth tones to melt an ice man.

Clinton's instincts are good. Listening to Iowans, holding off on imperial rallies, is smart. And, of course, she's heavily favored to win. But Clinton must let a lot more Iowans into her bubble if she really wants that big caucus bounce.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452' todd.dorman@thegazette.com