Between the lines: "Arkansas Travelers" prepped to promote Hillary Clinton

Campaign volunteers from state prepped to wield their influence

Little will be easy for Hillary Clinton in her second bid for the presidency, not even in Arkansas, where she got 70 percent of the primary election vote her first time around.

Politically, the state is decidedly different from 2008 and that was a primary win, not the general election, in which she fared so well. So, her long-anticipated announcement on Sunday certainly met mixed reaction within Arkansas.

There were detractors, people who never supported her or her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Many others in this Republican-leaning state would oppose any Democrat.

Opposition came, too, from high-profile figures like former Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican evaluating his own second run for president. He warned others not to underestimate "the Clinton political machinery."

Despite the clear opposition, there is also strong residual support for Hillary Clinton in this state. Her political roots include her time as Arkansas' first lady as well as her national roles as America's first lady, U.S. senator from New York and, most recently, secretary of state.

Hers is a resume unmatched by any other prospective president, but that resume is not what Clinton emphasized this week as she launched her 2016 presidential bid. She focused on the role she wants to play as a champion for everyday Americans.

Her campaign roll-out on social media -- and the road trip that put her in more intimate settings with voters -- left the resume behind to showcase a more personal, and more personable, Hillary Clinton. It is the quality the Arkansas Travelers, volunteers who campaigned for her in 2008, emphasized back then.

They wanted America to know "The Hillary We Know," and used a brochure with the same title. They told and retold their individual experiences to reintroduce her to the nation as their friend, a wife and mother.

Their message, too, focused on her accomplishments in Arkansas, beginning with her days as a law professor in Fayetteville and her subsequent role as first lady and adviser to her husband, who was then governor.

Many of those Arkansas Travelers, joined by a new generation that includes their children and grandchildren, have already signed up for this campaign.

Sheila Bronfman directs the volunteers who originally organized to help elect Bill Clinton president in 1992, worked to re-elect him four years later and then campaigned for Hillary Clinton in her failed bid in 2008.

The Travelers famously travel at their own expense, often to venues that never see the presidential candidates, to campaign one-on-one with voters.

Just days after Hillary Clinton confirmed she will run, more than 400 potential volunteers are "ready to go," Bronfman said.

She means that literally. The Arkansas Travelers will work in Arkansas but also in other states, notably Iowa and New Hampshire, where the first party caucuses and primary elections will be held.

"Everybody is just thrilled," Bronfman said of Clinton's candidacy, emphasizing this campaign will be different from the 2008 campaign, from which Clinton withdrew after Barack Obama surged to the lead in early primary voting.

Bronfman, who is a Little Rock political consultant, acknowledged the atmosphere in Arkansas is not conducive to a Democrat.

After all, Republicans won all of the state's constitutional offices, all of the congressional offices and majorities in both houses of the state Legislature in 2014.

Still, Bronfman believes Clinton's early work in Arkansas to improve education and on behalf of women, children and families will be remembered.

"She just changed their lives," Bronfman added, saying she expects voters will look more at the person and who can be a leader than at the party label in this election.

Clinton, one of the best-known people in the world, will have to overcome a lot of old perceptions about her. But she is up to the task, according to Bronfman, who said Clinton is going into the campaign a little more relaxed and displaying those warmer traits her Arkansas friends know.

Plus, she has all the qualifications to be president, Bronfman said.

Then there is that "political machinery" that Huckabee mentioned.

That would be the well-financed campaign nucleus that has come together for Clinton. Based in Brooklyn, it will expand and continue to gather money and recruits for what is expected to be the most expensive presidential election ever.

It's also likely to be a noisy, negative campaign.

Republican hopefuls, some of whom are declared candidates and some still deciding whether to get in, are uniting against her. Whatever divisions they have in their own ranks, their collective objective is to damage Clinton enough that whoever is the Republican nominee can best her in the general election.

They, and many analysts, are just that certain of Clinton's nomination.

For her part, Clinton doesn't seem to be quite that convinced.

She is bucking history, including her own history, on several fronts. But she certainly looks like a candidate intent on convincing voters they don't know her as well as they might think.

Brenda Blagg is a freelance columnist and author of "Political Magic: The Travels, Trials and Triumphs of the Clintons' Arkansas Travelers." E-mail comments or questions to [email protected].

Commentary on 04/15/2015

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