Sneak Peek: Dems Battle in Waterloo

ByABC News
January 8, 2009, 1:01 AM

August 14, 2007— -- Wednesday. Waterloo. Another Democratic labor forum.

But don't you get your hopes up for another Soldier Field throwdown.

Or this: LINK)

One week after they exchanged sharp words over terrorism and the role of lobbyists at the AFL-CIO's candidate forum in Chicago, the Democratic '08ers are at it again hoping to score points with Big Labor.

At the 51st annual Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO state convention, the candidates will not be on stage at the same time but will face the same questions.

Starting at 3:00 pm ET, six presidential candidates (Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, in that order) will each spend 30 minutes before the questioning squad of AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka, CWA International President Larry Cohen, and Executive Vice-President, Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO Jan Laue.

Trumka will ask questions related to jobs, the economy and trade; Cohen will focus on the Employee Free Choice Act, and Laue will address health care.

The questions will be the same for all six candidates, but the length or brevity of the responses will determine how many questions they get. Organizers are hoping for about eight per candidate.

(Who wants to set the over/under on how many questions each candidate answers? Biden – only 3?)

But that's not all the Democrats are up to on Wednesday. . .

Clinton meets with local residents at the Waukee Community Center at 10:30 am ET before making her way to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino played right into the Clinton playbook today when she said that the campaign's new Iowa ad ("Invisible") was "outrageous" and it was "unconscionable" for a member of Congress to say American troops are invisible to the President.

This right after she professed a desire to NOT get involved in the back-and-forth of the 2008 race, ABC News' Jon Garcia reports.

The Clinton campaign quickly made sure the White House reaction was in the inboxes of political reporters and prominently displayed on HillaryHub.com