Clinton ends Iowa campaign with display of political might

Hillary Clinton wheeled out her fabled political machine last night, hoping the display would help power her to a strong finish in the Iowa caucuses.

The rally in central Des Moines was intended to showcase Clinton's organisational might and institutional support.

It was a reminder that despite Barack Obama's surge in the polls in Iowa, Clinton was a candidate with solid support from respected and popular Democratic figures. But there was a sense too that Clinton had encountered a far tougher fight than had been expected.

"This is the last event, the last event in a wonderful long campaign that started out with a level of intensity that I had never experienced before that has only gotten more so," she began.

But that was the only glimpse of emotion from Clinton in a brisk address that touched on the themes she has sounded since the beginning of her campaign, such as experience, and its importance for an effective president.

"Waiting for that president on the desk in the Oval Office will be all the problems we know," she said. "There are all of the problems that will end up on the desk of that president that none of us can foresee now."

She was welcomed on stage by her husband and former president, Bill; his former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright; the former Nato supreme commander, General Wesley Clark; and Hollywood stars Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson.

The overflowing crowds were enthusiastic, chanting Madam President, and Hill-a-ry, Nom-i-nee. "They know that she will win and be a good president," Bill Clinton said in his brief introduction.

But despite the reliance on Clinton's familiar claims of experience, she was not above borrowing one of Obama's most popular themes: hope for genuine change in Washington.

"After seven years of the Bush administration there is a feeling in the land that somehow we can't solve all our problems, a sense of fatalism that has affected us," she said. "Well I don't believe that."

Clinton brought her closing arguments to an even wider audience last night with a two-minute advertisement that aired on every 6pm newscast across the state.

The large advertising investment - even for a candidate with the fundraising muscle of Clinton - was indicative of the high stakes for Clinton at today's caucuses. With Clinton in a dead heat against Obama and John Edwards, her strategists have tried to dampen expectations.

"This race is just tight as a tick," said JoDee Winterhof, a senior strategist. "We have the most intense competition."

In the end, Clinton's prospects may rest on the preparations her campaign workers have made to enlist first time caucus-goers, and to get her supporters to caucus sites.

Winterhof said the campaign had gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure middle-aged and elderly women - Clinton's most committed supporters - turn up to vote. "In 2004, we were offering hundreds of rides. This time it is in the thousands."

Christie Vilsack, the wife of a former Democratic governor and a key supporter, argued Clinton had a hidden advantage in Iowa: the support of middle-aged women who will be attending their first caucus.

"Many of them are women my age - a little younger, a little older," Vilsack said. "They have been running things all their lives, but they all of a sudden realise they can do this political thing too. They have got their political sea legs."