Hillary Clinton was back Monday in the early nominating state of Iowa for the second time since she announced she was running for president for a second time.
Clinton spoke to about 60 people at the Mason City home of Dean Genth and Gary Swenson, major Democratic organizers in Iowa who where were among the first gay couples married in the state. They supported Barack Obama in 2008.
“I am going into this race with my eyes wide open about how hard it is to be the president. I have a little experience with that,” she said. ““We need a president who has both the experience and understanding to deal with the complexity of the problems we face. I believe I can go into that office on the very first day and do what is required.”
She thanked Obama for the work he did to pull American out of the economic “mess” he inherited and then spoke to the crowd about the four pillars of her campaign.
She repeated her call for universal pre-K, making college affordable, push a policy to expand coverage in some way to children covered under the Act who lose coverage when they turn 26. And she expanded on her previous comments about limiting unaccountable money.
“I think the Supreme Court made a grave error with Citizens United….I will do everything I can to appoint Supreme Court justices who protect the right to vote and do not protect the right of billionaires to buy elections,” she said.
Clinton said she has been consulting with lots of legal experts, some of whom think there is a legislative remedy, while others say nothing short of a constitutional amendment or the court reversing itself would change things.
“I will work for that if it is the only way to fix this problem,” Clinton said.
She spoke again about how drug abuse and mental health have come to take a much more prominent place in her campaign than she had anticipated because of her conversations in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“It is below the surface people are talking about it,” she said. “It is something hard to deal with.”
When she started the campaign, Clinton said, “I did not believe I would be standing in your living room talking about the drug abuse problem, the suicide problem and the mental health problem. Now I am convinced I have to talk about it.”
Afterward, she stuck around to mingle with the guests, who included a smattering of local politicians and other party activists.
Clinton continues her trip to Iowa in Cedar Falls Tuesday where she will meet with small business owners.