CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – The big rallies and massive fundraising blitzes can wait for now. Fresh from a two-day road trip, Hillary Rodham Clinton is making her 2016 campaign debut in Iowa at a small-town gathering reminiscent of her Senate “listening tour.”
Clinton was touring a community college and holding a roundtable discussion with students and teachers in Monticello, Iowa, on Tuesday, part of a concerted effort by her campaign to tamp down big expectations and hold personal “conversations” with voters.
“I won’t take anything for granted. I’m going to work my heart out to earn every single vote,” Clinton said in a fundraising email to supporters Monday.
Clinton is taking that same low-key approach to fundraising, forgoing the celebrity-studded fundraisers that marked her husband’s presidency, as well as the high-dollar private events put on this year by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a potential GOP rival. Instead, Clinton’s initial appeals for money will be for small-dollar donations collected over the Internet instead of in swanky fundraising blowouts in New York, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
Advisers have set a modest goal of raising $100 million for the primary campaign and will not initially accept donations for the general election.