Hillary Clinton: I’m a better candidate with a better organization than in 2008

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Monday she’s a better candidate and is better organized than she was when she lost the Iowa caucuses eight years ago, citing her experience as secretary of state as voters in the Hawkeye State prepare to make their choices Monday evening.

“I think that I have a much better organization, to be just really clear about it,” Mrs. Clinton said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I think that we built an organization using a lot of the lessons learned, and we recruited some of the best people that you could find anywhere in the country working in Democratic politics.”

“I think I’m a better candidate,” she said. “I think that in addition to just knowing more about the caucus process and what we needed to do to build toward this night, my experience as secretary of state deepened and intensified my understanding about what the next president will have to face.”

“So all in all, I feel it’s a different, energized effort that is really bringing in people from across the state and indeed across the country who know what’s at stake in this election, understand how really dramatic and drastic it would be if the Republicans were to take back the White House, because they would rip out the progress,” she said.

Despite a huge advantage in early polling in the 2008 race, Mrs. Clinton lost Iowa to President Obama, then a U.S. senator, before going on to lose the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. She’s facing a stiff challenge from Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont in the 2016 race for the Democratic presidential nomination, with polls showing the two candidates neck-and-neck in Iowa.