The scene did not exactly reek of triumph. Just two dozen supporters had gathered at the union hall perched between a welding company and a gas station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The room was two-thirds empty, the sign-up sheets on the walls blank. But that did not deter Terry McAuliffe, the hyperkinetic chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, as he tucked into his speech at the seventh event of his long day. "The campaign is on fire. We're doing great," McAuliffe told the room.

Campaign on fire?  Empty union hall?  OK.  What other kool-aid is available for us to drink.

But McAuliffe wasn't resting on his laurels. "What happens in your state here is going to be a huge determinant of who the Democratic nominee for president is," he said. "Don't believe the polls. Four of the last six polls have put Hillary in the lead here. But we're not in first place. We're bunched up in a three-way tie ... We've got to run like we're 20 points behind."

McAuliffe's pitch is a sign of both the strength and the weakness of the Clinton campaign in Iowa.

Yes, I agree with this.  Everyone points at national poll numbers, but what do they mean?  Nothing at this point.  When you are in a three way race in Iowa and can be beaten in Iowa, what then?  You can not embrace the "strongest campaign" mantra, nor "inevitablity" that will be blown to the wind.  So, now the Clinton Campaign has just found out that the State of Iowa, does matter.  And they are coming around that they need to win there.

A defeat in the first-in-the-nation caucus could imperil her lead in other early states, if the pattern of previous elections is repeated. And an early loss would raise serious questions about her campaign's biggest selling point: that she is strongest, most electable candidate in the field.

Again, all the squirms that many democrats have with her publicly and privately, will be out in the open.  And then that horrible word "electablity" will be on everyone's tongue.  Which could be, the beginning of the end for her.

Even Clinton's supporters in Iowa are nervous. Wally Horn, an Iowa state senator from Cedar Rapids, introduced McAuliffe at the union hall Wednesday evening. Horn, who has spent 35 years in the legislature, signed up with the campaign after persistent pressure from the candidate's husband during the Clintons' first campaign swing together in early July.

"He asked me three times in 15 minutes," Horn said, recalling that Clinton had visited him as a sitting president in 1994. Clinton's finger-wagging message for Horn was simple: "I want you to be for Hillary." But Horn sounds more supportive of Bill than of Hillary. "You know when he walks in the room; you don't need to look around, you just know he's there," he said. "What's so sad, for me anyway, is he tries to hide it now because of Hillary. He can explode a room, but he has to keep low and small."

Horn says he's convinced that Hillary is ready to be president. He just isn't sure that Iowans can be trusted to vote for her, even when they say they like her. "I was a [Dick] Gephardt supporter before, but people didn't show up at the precinct caucus," he said, referring to the former House Democratic leader from Missouri in the 2004 caucuses. "In Iowa, people are so nice they'll tell you they support you, but then they don't show up.

Wow.  Iowans are nice.  I went to school two years there.  Some of the nicest folk there.  I believe they will say one thing and then not show up.  Don't want to be impolite.  Which is why this statement below is a calling card, not only for Obama but Edwards, as well.

"This is what concerns me about Hillary. You almost know it's a natural for people to get out for Obama to the precinct caucus. But Hillary is going to have to get her people there, and it's not a natural."

Yes.  All the campaigns have to get their people out to the caucus.  But this is about which camp is more fired up.  I think it is the Edwards and Obama Camps.  There have been problems on the ground for Clinton, but more importantly she does not seem to be making traction in this state as it is reflected in the national polling.  That is a problem.

Which means she need to set up shop in Iowa.  She need to get out of Washington, D.C. and get real with the public in Iowa.  She need to sit down with the editorial boards of the local papers and get grilled.  Edwards and Obama is going through this process.  Why?  Because she has been called out about it on national television by local reporters in Iowa and New Hampshire.  Stop the rallys.  Stop not answering pointed questions.  Get real with the people.  If the people do not believe what you are selling, they will smile politely and go to someone who they do believe.

Yes.  They have just figured out, that they need to win Iowa.  And I believe that, too.

Update [2007-10-6 18:24:45 by iamready]:

Clinton on Leadership or Lack of It:

So far her post-first-lady record suggests a follower rather than a leader. She still can't offer a credible explanation of why she gave President Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq (or why she voted against the Levin amendment that would have put on some diplomatic brakes). That's because her votes had more to do with hedging her political bets than with principle. Nor has she explained why it took her two years of the war going south to start speaking up against it. She was similarly tardy with her new health care plan, waiting to see what heat Mr. Edwards and Senator Obama took with theirs. She has lagged behind the Democratic curve on issues ranging from the profound (calling for an unequivocal ban on torture) to the trivial (formulating a response to the MoveOn.org Petraeus ad).

LINK
From diary on daily kos