kinder woman's woman in many ways. >> on the front page of the bods globe, iowa voters examine alternatives to clinton. she hopes it will renew the focus. katherine is based in iowa. as you talk to political watchers veterans who watched so many campaigns come through iowa, katherine lucy, what are they saying will make a successful roll out here, a successful visit to iowa in the first couple days of her new campaign? >> well i think clinton's people are probably talking to the same people i am i think there is a real sense that people want to see her come in talk to people, go to diners, go to coffee shops. do the kind of sort of low key retail politicking that iowa caucus goers expect and demand from their candidates. i think in terms of this approach, i mean that's what i am hearing. activists say they want to see her, and there's been some anxiety on the democratic side

the past few months, because compared to the republican field where you have a huge field of candidates, there's less happening with democrats and they want to get going. they want to see candidates, they want to talk to them, vet them, even if it is hillary clinton, and they've met her before, they want her out here. >> and we are happy to have our viewers join the conversation as well. phone lines are open. republicans can call in. democrats, independents. take us to new hampshire, a gathering of republicans scheduled for this weekend in new hampshire, tell us what's going on. >> absolutely. friday and saturday nearly every

republican presidential hopeful will go through new hampshire for the state party leadership summit. at the crown plaza, which i hear is lovely. 19 speakers signed up for this. the only two not on the list ben carson and rick santorum. every other person on the speaking list, all 19 of them republican presidential hopeful. two solid days of speeches rick perry kicks it off friday at lunchtime, marco rubio jeb bush hit friday evening, and scott walker closes out saturday night dinner. >> and marco rubio announcing his campaign for the presidency yesterday. want to show our viewers a bit from that announcement. >> yesterday is over. [ cheers and applause ] and we are never going back.

you see, we americans are proud of our history but our country has always been about the future and before us now is the opportunity to author the greatest chapter yet in the amazing story of america but we can't do that by going back to leaders and ideas of the past. we must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them. so that is why tonight grounded by the lessons of our history but inspired by the promise of our future i announce my candidacy for president of the united states. [ cheers and applause ]

>> and that announcement coming in marco rubio's home state of florida. here's the miami herald front page story on it. candidate rubio calls upon new conservative generation is the headline there. we're talking with our political experts, sheer a center of boston globe, and catherine lucey. the phone lines are as usual this morning. republicans, democrats, independents. george in louisville, kentucky. good morning george. >> good morning. nice to hear from everybody. i'm just hoping that this doesn't get too negative. i hear the smear campaigns will be out in mass. it started with the lee atwater

campaign in '88. and i just hope if hillary is hit with a lot. i think the benghazi ordeal is a scandal. there was no stand down orders. i think most of the lies are coming from the right wing crowd and i think we have to -- i am tired of hearing about negativity about other people. i want to hear why we should vote for somebody opposed to trying to smear someone else. if hillary gets smeared, i hope she fights back with everything in her. i am tired of these smear tactics from the other side. thank you very much. >> pick up on republican reaction to hillary clinton's announcement, the video and now van tour to iowa. >> to the question i don't think anyone can expect no negative campaigning in the next year and a half, that's unlikely

given the times we are in. there's been lot of interest on the republican side about clinton, when she will get in and certainly there has been criticism and negative commentary about her before this. now that there's a candidate in the race, the huge republican field can really focus on her a lot more directly and they probably will. >> and we should note that hillary clinton will be in monticello iowa later today. watch that appearance on cspan2 at 1:15 eastern time, 12:15 central out in iowa. speaking of the ability to see presidential candidates, a tweet from jodie as we have been having this discussion. she writes iowa is the only state one can talk to presidential hopefuls. should choose a new first state each election. go to paul waiting in

in chesapeake, virginia. paul, go ahead. >> caller: yes, a couple of comments. one, a question. are any governors looking to get in the race instead of senators. some of these senators are young and we just went through eight years of that. the second question is hillary claims to champion the middle class. 12 years in the governor's mansion of arkansas eight years in the white house, then secretary of state. my question is what does she really know about the middle class? thank you. >> if you want to take the first part of that on govern ors or those jumping into the presidential race. >> you have 21 possible republican candidates running a few are governors, scott walker

is looking seriously polling well in early states. former florida governor jeb bush is another candidate potential candidate with executive experience. he's also polling well in the race. candidates that aren't polling well former new york governor to name others that are considering running for president. >> catherine, do you want to pick up on the challenge of hillary clinton relating to middle class americans? >> that certainly is what she is setting out to do here. she's going to be here trying to talk one on one with real people. saw the tone she was setting in her video, she wanted to connect with everyday folks on their problems and their concerns looking to the future. and i think one of the things she's going to be talking about she said on her website, she wants to be people's champion.

in terms of how she will frame this, i think it will be i understand your concerns i am going to fight for your concerns, and i think that's one of the ways she will approach this. >> catherine i should have you follow up. you had a recent story in real clear politics about another former chief executive on the campaign trail martin o'malley. >> absolutely yes. former maryland governor has been in iowa several times recently as he ponders a 2016 democratic bid as well and he has been received well here. i have seen him do a couple of events. he is definitely offering a progressive message, talking a lot about income inequality raising minimum wage, you know financial reform in terms of oversight of banking and people are responding to that so i think he has a message that

people are interested in, and i think also democratic activists here and other early voting states want to see options they don't want to just have a coronation, so to speak, of hillary clinton. >> and hillary clinton so far ahead in so many polls early polls we have seen. catherine lucey do they matter? >> the polls matter, obviously clinton is a favorite at this point, but the thing that's interesting, you know, almost a year out from the iowa caucuses is that surprises can happen and these are states where if you put in the time, if you are really making rounds, if you are meeting with people that people are going to listen and they're going to, you know, give you a shot. the caucus participants want to

vet the options and they're first in the nation. they'll give anyone that comes in here a look. >> one of the polls on the democratic side of the ticket, hillary clinton ahead by 40 points in north carolina to her next closest challenger potential challenger vice president joe biden. o'malley with 5% to clinton's 53% in that public policy polling poll. do polls matter at this point? >> not really but not for the reason you might think. yes, it is early. what they measure by large portion is name identification and hillary clinton as we discussed is extremely well known. just looking at the nature of the field on our side, even if you have nine candidates vying actively in iowa caucuses in new hampshire primary that means the winner will only get between 15 and 17% of the vote, maybe

20% on election night if they really have a blowout. when you look at numbers that small, it is extremely hard to judge this far out how well a candidate can do. >> happy to take viewer calls and thoughts. any topics related to 2016 for the next half hour on washington journal. david in waldorf, maryland. line for democrats. good morning. >> good morning. seems our politics has become some type of perverted theater. any politician that doesn't raise millions and millions can't run. any politician that says anything against israel even if it is true cannot run, rand paul, who i am not a fan of, he has said some things that made common sense how america should free itself from its relationship with israel and the

media does not give him due time like they will clinton or rubio or jeb. someone needs to talk about that. kennedy when he said there are forces that want to enslave america, we know three weeks later he was killed. so americans need to stop being transfixed with the theater and get down to the truth. >> catherine lucey, first part of the question talked about fund raising expectations. what are the expectations on hillary clinton after her announcement over the weekend? >> i know that obviously she's getting right into fund raising, they're starting right away, are going to raise huge amounts of money. the thing with these races on both sides and we have seen this the past few cycles, there's so many vehicles for fund raising and spending in terms of

candidate committees and outside committees, huge amounts of money can come in in a lot of different ways. it is going to -- as every presidential, probably the biggest spending presidential. she will have ample opportunity to raise and access funds and yeah, it does create a certain kind of race, absolutely. >> shira center on the caller's second points on maybe foreign policy in general or israel policy specifically as they will factor into the presidential contest and primaries. >> right. so i think especially in the republican field, you're going to be hard pressed to find a candidate that doesn't describe himself or herself as a partner and friend of israel. it will be the same on the democratic side. republicans particularly have been emphasizing america's relationship with israel more and more over the last decade or so and i think the current negotiations in iran will keep

the issue in the forefront at least through summer until we figure out the details in early august, which is conveniently around the time of one of the first debates. >> don up next in redding california, line for independents. thanks for getting up early on the washington journal. >> i hope i have a little bit of a cold hope i can do this. marco rubio's entrance slogan or his slogan yesterday was a new american century, and which is kind of interesting. i thought maybe it might be a shoutout to the military industrial complex going back to the draft of the project for the new american century where neocons wanted to get military spending back up to reagan era levels. i wonder if he might be reaching

out to them a little bit. thanks. >> catherine lucey on the new american century slogan. what do you think marco rubio is trying to refer to here? >> obviously the slogan could have a number of meanings. the most basic one i think is that he is trying to frame himself as a new face a new voice, and the future in the republican party. and that will contrast him with other folks in the race. certainly that's going back to our comments earlier about hillary clinton and can she re-invent, can she sort of reposition herself, that is a contrast for her. rubio is new and presents new ideas and i think her critics will say she represents the past. >> el paso, texas up next, the republicans where gina is waiting. >> i am a former democrat i was

voting for hillary in 2008 i was disappointed when she didn't win the caucus in iowa, came in third against john edwards and barack obama. we learned since then john edwards has been a disgrace. despite that history, how can iowa convince the rest of the nation that they're convinced hillary should be number one when they tried to convince us that she wasn't good enough, and she wasn't what we needed because we needed hope and change. she was supposed to be the one for hope and change now but she wasn't the one then, so if the democrats didn't want her then, why would they want her now? i think it is kind of hypocritical that the democratic party is trying to convince us in polls that she's a formidable candidate when they convinced her to drop out of the race

since day one. >> katherine lucey, another caller with concerns in iowa being the lead in the primary season as iowa always is. can you talk a little about it from your perspective on the ground? >> iowa gets a lot of flack for being first, having this kind of intimate access to candidates, and this kind of voice in the nominating process. i think a lot of activists and politicians will be candid, they're lucky but they would also say that they take the process seriously and that this is a place where candidates can do a kind of one on one retail politicking they can't easily do in bigger states with bigger media markets. so clinton can come here and really, you know have these experiences with voters that maybe it would be harder to do in other places. to this election versus 2008 democrats now and then, i mean

it is a different election it is a different field of candidates, and there were a lot of iowa democrats that liked hillary in 2008. she did get a lot of support in the caucuses even though she ultimately came in third and there's a lot of people here who are excited to see her and do think this is her time and are, quote, ready for hillary. so i think there are folks who feel ready for her, and people who want to see options and want to wait awhile and figure out what's out there. but they're committed to the process here. >> and the boston globe shira center same question to you about new hampshire perspective on the ground. new hampshire a state in 2008 where hillary clinton briefly took back momentum during the democratic primaries. >> yeah, absolutely. after her horrible loss in iowa as the caller mentioned, third place in the caucuses came to new hampshire and rebounded, defeated barack obama in the new hampshire primary by just a

couple of points there, and it really propelled her and extended the democratic primary. you could argue several months beyond that. it changed the dynamic of the race. you want to talk access the race. voters of new hampshire, because the state is so small i think really have an incredible access to candidates that maybe is on par, even more intimate than iowa voters given the size of the state. there's an old joke about a new hampshire voter undecided and wavering about a candidate saying what, i only met him or her twice. that's the way it goes in the small state. check it out on c-span 2 starting at 9:00 a.m. the boston globe sure to have plenty of conch from that event

as we. back to the calls. line for democrats you eesh an with shira center and catherine lucey skblk what i was calling about was the smear campaign. you have one that hillary is going to face. what about martin o'malley. with his extra affairs that he has with women where he had to have an affair covered up by his father-in-law. what about that? thank you. >> catherine lucey do you want to pick up this? you followed martin o'malley around a little bit. >> i can't speak to a smear campaign or those allegations specifically. from what i saw here he was well-received in iowa. no one was talking about any such allegations at any of the events i've been at. and i think he's got a lot of opportunity here. >> lee, virginia, line for republicans.

lee, good morning. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. my question is this. the 2008 election kind of showed the faceoff between the old card and both the democratic party and the republican party first obama and clinton and then obama and mitt romney. so my question is as we go into the next election, who is likely to potentially upset in the democratic party clinton the same way that barack obama did? is there a candidate out there with the same kind of name recognition and charisma and potentially momentum that could provide the enthusiasm that obama provided? >> shira center, you want to lead off? >> absolutely. certainly by this point in the 2008 cycle even when hillary clinton looked like the front runner, we knew barack obama was

looking at the race. he was very serious about the race. might have already announce his exploratory committee. we knew about this maybe even a year ago at this time in the 2008 cycle. this time around there is no one specifically on the horizon who has that kind of national following, that kind of charismatic leadership who said they're interested in running. to only candidate who already has those qualities is elizabeth warren and she says she does not want to run, this is not in the future for her. she would be the only person i think hillary clinton could potentially be upset by in the primary. it is notable if you look at a lot of hillary clinton's messages over the last couple of days, she's talking about a lot of the things that elizabeth warren talks about a lot, revooig the middle class, huge themes that elizabeth warren has

been talking about for years. >> does that answer bill king's question from twitter who asks even if they don't run or if they do, will they push her positions fut left as many of us do not believe she's left enough? >> i don't think bernie sanders with all respect to the senator from vermont, i don't see him having a huge impact on which way hillary clinton goes. elizabeth warren is the party's populous populous. you see hillary clinton echoing the tones already. >> we want to hear from our viewers about the next 15 minutes or so. we've got shira center and catherine lucey. if you're not meeting with candidates right now, we'd be happy to hear from you this morning on "the wall street journal." in the meantime we'll go to one

of those swing states, ohio. yolanda is waiting on the line for republicans. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. no. i just wanted to give me comment that i can't believe when i hear people say it's her turn, it is nobody's turn. aren't we to pick the most experienced, the one -- it just bothered me. i keep seeing white water e-mail scandals and especially benghazi, that bothers me a lot when i see clips of pictures of the guys who lost their lives and then hillary answering questions saying, what difference does it make? i just don't trust her. i'm sorry. we need some fresh new faces, i think. >> catherine lucey if you want to pick up on that, both the trust issue and how the clinton camp reacts to comments like it's her turn. >> yeah, i think the clinton

camp is trying to get as far away as possible from the it's her turn type messaging by doing things like driving to iowa in a van, doing her first events as small, you know, intimate meetings with voters. they are being very clear that they want her to -- that she wants to earn every vote. that she's going to fight for every vote. they are trying very hard to get away from any suggestion that she is taking this for granted that she expected this. they are sort of comparing us a lot to her campaign for senate in new york where she did a big listening tour and met with tons of people and convinced you know that state that she was the right pick for senator. they say she wants to work for it like that again. >> and you mentioned that van already, the name scooby is the van.

scooby scoots clinton to iowa named scooby because it reminds clinton of the van in the series. >> i think if it looked like the scooby van, we would have a much easy time to find her. >> why is it so tough to find her? is that on purpose by the clinton came pain? she's shown up on social media occasionally. >> yeah. looks like they're trying to keep this trip low key. they're not sending out tons of twitter pictures of her on the road with people. they've done one or two things. she appeared to go to the chipotle and not tell anyone who she was and order her, whatever it was. >> there's the picture. >> shaken burrito bowl shira center your thought on the low

key nature and having to catch hillary clinton on security cameras here. >> it is interesting. on the one hand her campaign could have totally overplayed this taking selfies from every gas station but they didn't. they wanted to keep it totally low key. it remind me during mitt romney's campaign when he went on the every man's tour and bragged about getting $4.99 hamburgers and flying southwest all the time. they don't want to look like they're overdoing it. and instead it looks a little more national. if you have a reporter call the manager of chipotle and asking for the security footage, then taking a selfie with the staff making a burrito bowl. >> jim is up next in tom bean, texas, line for democrats. jim, good morning. >> caller: am i on? >> yes, sir. >> caller: okay. what i wanted to share with you

was, you know, all of the women i talked to, republican independent and democrat they all love hillary clinton. now i don't understand that. i'm a man. but then they say, well, the republicans, they've got the white males. i'm a white male. all my friends are white males and all my friends are democrats. where are they getting the story that they've got the white male? and then you think about the hispanics. you think about the african americans. i mean you talk about the say shans even. they all love hillary. it's going to be a landslide, man. >> catherine lucey if you want to pick up on the voting blocks that the clinton camp is trying to court her and specifically the female vote. >> yeah. i mean obviously in the weeks and months leading up to this announcement, clinton has been doing a lot of first speaking events and has really been talking a lot more about gender

equality, about equity in the workplace, about issues that particularly matter to women. and that's a contrast to 2008 where she didn't really at least at the get-go, talk about those things as much. certainly that's going to be a much bigger focus in her campaign appealing to women and some of the issues that are important to them. in terms of whether it will be a landslide, i think we'll all have to wait and see. >> and catherine lucey quick question from instagram please ask the reporter if hillary will take questions at the events in iowa and will they be staged like was revealed in 2008? what do you know about taking questions at those events? >> i do not know if she'll be taking questions at this events. they are -- there is going to be press at you know one event -- at least an event today and an event tomorrow. i would assume there will also be a