A surging Clinton campaign tries to play it cool

Hillary Clinton onstage at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, in October. (Photo: Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters)

Hillary Clinton’s staff in Iowa woke up on Saturday to a call recorded by pop singer Katy Perry.

“It’s a beautiful day here in Iowa, and I’m here ready to rally for our firework, Hillary,” Perry said.

It was indeed a beautiful weekend in Hillaryland. Perry’s appearance in Des Moines ahead of the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner included explosive confetti showers and a cameo by President Bill Clinton.

Hillary Clinton came into the weekend riding high. According to polls, she won the Democratic debate on Oct. 13. And then came her best week since she launched her campaign in April. Last Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden removed himself from contention and Clinton spent 11 hours testifying before the House Benghazi committee. The hearing was a tour de force that drew rave reviews and record donations and had Clinton literally flexing her muscles as she walked away from the Capitol complex.

With this string of successes under her belt, Clinton gave rousing remarks at the JJ dinner, as the annual party fundraising dinner is called colloquially. It was in large measure her standard stump speech, with details about her record, family history, and policy proposals. However, at the end, after invoking her granddaughter Charlotte as she often does, Clinton made a declaration about who she’s “fighting for.”

“I don’t think you should have to be the granddaughter of a former president to share in the promise of America,” Clinton said. “The granddaughters and grandsons of factory workers and truck drivers and nurses and farmers should have that same chance too."

Her words provoked roaring cheers from her crowd of glowstick-wielding supporters.

The JJ dinner is traditionally a chance to show off campaign organizing efforts in Iowa and prove candidates have strong ground game in the crucial primary state. Despite the positive coverage her speech and other events of the past few weeks have earned, Clinton and her team are downplaying the resurgence and seem determined to keep their heads down, not get caught up in the excitement, and not let their momentum be defined by press coverage that they know could turn against them at any moment.

As she walked through the lobby of the hotel in Des Moines where her entourage camped out during the JJ dinner, Clinton ignored a question from Yahoo News about whether last week was her best of the campaign so far.

Dave Miglin, a Clinton supporter who waited in the hotel to snap a picture of the candidate with his young daughter, clearly thought it was.“I think Hillary is hitting her stride right at the right moment. I mean, she really is,” Miglin said. “And now that this Benghazi thing is out of the way, I really do believe it is going to be go, go, go all the way to the finish line.”

Jerry Crawford, a Clinton family friend who was chair of her Iowa campaign in 2008 and has been described as her “main man” in the state, was also at the hotel to see Clinton off. In a conversation with Yahoo News, Crawford adopted what seems to be the campaign’s party line and downplayed the idea that Clinton is on a roll. Crawford rejected the idea that Clinton has changed her approach or is getting into a newfound groove. Instead, he argued Clinton has simply gotten more chances to get in front of the public, starting with the first Democratic primary debate.

“People, instead of getting the filtered Hillary through the media, they got the real Hillary and they were reminded how much they really like her and how much they really respect her,” Crawford said. “Then again this week, they got the real Hillary at the Benghazi hearing. And so, when she’s able to communicate directly to people she does extraordinarily well.”

Some diehard supporters echoed this notion, saying nothing has changed in Clinton’s approach. Clara Oleson is a 73-year-old woman who came to the JJ dinner representing the “Hillary Quilt Project,” a group of Iowans who are touring the state with a quilt they knitted that bears the Clinton campaign logo. Oleson suggested sexism is behind the notion Clinton is "hitting her stride.”

“One of the things you learn as a woman aiming at glass ceilings, you ‘hit your stride’ quite often,” Oleson explained. “You could say she hit her stride in 1973 when she went to law school, when it was the first big push of women going to law school.”

After Clinton gave her speech at the JJ dinner, Yahoo News asked one of her top aides for reaction. The aide sought to place the significance of Clinton’s recent stretch in context.

“It’s been a good ten days,” the aide said. “The mood’s good, but we’ve got a long way to go.”

The Clinton campaign has plenty of reasons to brush aside the notion of a resurgence. Clinton spent the first part of the primary campaign trying to shed the notion of inevitability. And with Sanders leading Clinton in New Hampshire and running nearly neck and neck with her in Iowa, her team also knows it faces a fight.

A YouGov/CBS News poll released Monday showed Clinton surging in key battleground states, opening up a small lead in Iowa and gaining ground in New Hampshire, though Sanders continues to lead there.

Her polling boost comes in the wake of a shift last month where Clinton’s team indicated she planned to show her softer side.

But with Clinton on an upswing, her rivals seem to be getting the knives out. Sanders’ speech at the JJ dinner didn’t name Clinton, but it contained a string of criticisms of her record. While Sanders campaign staffers denied going “negative,” they admit they have sharpened their approach.

In a memorandum sent to reporters on Monday, Bill Hyers, the senior campaign strategist for another Clinton rival, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, described the JJ dinner as featuring “shots across the bow in what is shaping up to be a more aggressive primary than initially imagined.”

But if the Clinton campaign is facing a more heated phase of the primary as it tries to pull firmly ahead, her diehard supporters seem ready for it.

Oleson, the Clinton quilter, is a former Iowa House candidate and labor educator. In her conversation with Yahoo News, she referred to her past as a ’70s feminist to explain her animosity toward Sanders.

“I’m an old women’s liberationist,” Oleson said, adding, “Bernie Sanders says ‘Honk for the Revolution’ on his bumper sticker.’ You know, I just want to pee on it. You know? Like what the hell do you know about revolution? I mean, I grew up with a bunch of radical lesbians. We thought that there was going to be a revolution in this country. Hillary Clinton is not a bad second.”