From the Des Moines Register in June 2014:
One of the first Iowans to buy [Hillary’s book] "Hard Choices" was Dr. Andrea McGuire, who was co-chairwoman of Clinton's 2008 campaign in Iowa. "I want to see what she has to say about what she did as secretary of state and how she's become the great leader she is," she said.
It wasn't a leap to suspect McGuire would add the book to her collection. The license plate on her Buick Enclave says "HRC 2016."
This is not entirely unusual. One doesn’t expect the Iowa Democratic party chair to be an Independent. One assumes that whoever is chosen, that person will be for one of the fellow Democratic candidates.
But what this article and other reporting from the time indicate is that Hillary was determined to never lose an Iowa primary event again and went to great measures to get all her loyal ducks in a row, long before Bernie Sanders even announced he was running. And succeeded, even getting one of her own campaign operatives installed as IDP chair.
As a result, it is indisputably clear that the Clintons had the whole Iowa Democratic party machinery in their corner from the beginning.
And then you have the fact that all the main Iowa media outlets, which constitute 99% of what Iowan’s consume about their home state, were running a blatant media black out on the Sanders campaign.
For example, this is a snapshot of what the Des Moines Register’s coverage of the campaign has been like for months, no matter how big a story the insurgent campaign of Bernie Sanders might be. This snapshot was taken Fri. Jan. 22 just after some new polls broke showing Bernie actually leading in Iowa. What was the Des Moines Register’s response? Look for yourself.
Blackout. Aside from the one photo in the top left (which was actually only visible ¼ of the time since it was an alternating flash image), and a brief bit by the Doors drummer taking about LSD and Bernie Sanders rallies, that was it.
And it was always like this. As I argued at the time, the only way most Iowans ever even heard of Bernie was his TV spots.
And yet he may have actually won the Iowa caucus but for a few coin tosses. And he almost certainly won the popular vote.
Now, ask yourselves, what do you think the results would have been if Bernie had had equal treatment from the Iowa Democratic party, the national Democratic party, and the mass media?
Landslide, I suspect.