Opinion: Clinton ‘yields’ to the crowd

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To take audience questions or not?

As she wrapped up a frenetic day of campaigning in Iowa Saturday, Hillary Clinton began leaving it up to those who had come to see her.

In Dubuque, The Times’ Seema Mehta reports, the Democratic presidential contender asked a crowd of hundreds of supporters spilling out of a ballroom whether they wanted to ask questions or take pictures and sign autographs. One man shouted out “autographs!”

“Okay, ask me your questions at the rope line,” she replied.

At the next rally -- the day’s last -- in Manchester, Clinton offered the same choice, and the result was never in doubt.

‘I can take a few questions, or I can come out and shake hands,’ she said. ‘What do you think? Come on out? Okay!’

Earlier, at an event in, appropriately, the town of Clinton, she veered from the ‘don’t ask’ policy she’s followed of late and let the audience fire away. One of the queries focused on Pakistan, and she used the occasion to scold President Bush. His dealings with the country, she said, have ‘put way too much emphasis on [President Pervez] Musharraf instead of dealing with broader Pakistani society.’

-- Don Frederick