Jennifer Jacobs

jejacobs@dmreg.com

Hillary Clinton mentions Iowa just once in her new memoir, "Hard Choices."

And it's in a sentence that includes the word "excruciating."

The book wasn't exactly flying off the shelves here, a spot check of local bookstores showed on Tuesday, the day of its release. But it's not yet high season for the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. Voters here can wait for authors/presidential-wannabes to turn up in person, as they inevitably do.

Clinton dedicated 74 days to campaigning in Iowa during her 2008 bid for the White House, only to suffer an embarrassing third-place finish in the Democratic caucuses.

The lone Iowa reference in "Hard Choices" is part of a positive passage about how she "learned a lot from losing." But she doesn't share a single anecdote or dwell on the time she spent here.

"The night of the Iowa caucuses, when I placed third, was excruciating," she wrote.

Clinton has a brighter outlook about later states. Of New Hampshire, the state that follows Iowa on the presidential voting calendar, she writes: "I found my footing and my voice. My spirits were lifted."

Despite Iowa Democrats' preference for Barack Obama in 2008, they're now salivating for Clinton to run in 2016, The Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll found earlier this year. And it's not just Democrats who like her: 50 percent of Iowans ages 18 and older said it's a "good idea" for her to run, a late February poll found.

Some fear Clinton might skip Iowa

Some Democratic leaders have confided that they harbor concerns that Clinton isn't terribly fond of Iowa, and that if she decides to run for president in 2016 as many predict, she might jump over Iowa and dedicate more time courting voters in other early states. After all, her husband, Bill Clinton, didn't compete in the Iowa caucuses in 1992, proving a Democratic candidate can bypass the first-in-the-nation vote and still win the White House, Iowa activists have noted.

A spokesman for Clinton told the Register in August 2013 that Clinton "looks back on it all fondly," referring to the 2008 campaign in general.

But in "Hard Choices," Clinton says her campaign "was long and exhausting, and cost way too much money." She is frank about how deeply disappointed she was to lose to fellow Democrat Barack Obama, saying that by the time he had the nomination sealed, she and her staffers "had long lists of grievances."

And the feeling was mutual, she said. "There had been hot rhetoric and bruised feelings on both sides," Clinton writes. "Despite a lot of pressure from his backers, I had refused to quit until the last."

Amazon.com officials noted that the hardcover edition was ranked No. 2 on Amazon's national bestsellers list on Tuesday afternoon, but weren't able to get Iowa-specific sales numbers by the Register's deadline. And Officials with Apple iBooks didn't respond to a request for download numbers.

Beaverdale Books, in a Des Moines neighborhood nicknamed Obamadale during the 2012 general election season, had only two preorders, a clerk said.

Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City also saw just a handful of purchases.

"I think the psychology with this one is, people are asking themselves, 'How many hard-cover Hillary books am I going to have in my house?'" said Paul Ingram, the buyer for Prairie Lights.

Ingram said images of the cover of Clinton's new book are "everywhere."

"It's not as though they weren't trying to market it," he said.

But the hottest reads at Prairie Lights tend to be "books by local people," Ingram said. He predicted two books expected out this fall will be best-sellers in Iowa: "Lila," by Marilynne Robinson, a faculty member of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and "Some Luck," by Jane Smiley, who was on the faculty at Iowa State University.

'08 Iowa co-chairwoman snatches up a copy

One of the first Iowans to buy "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."

"It was a Christmas gift from my kids," said McGuire, who lives in Des Moines. "They said what would their mom like best and what she would like is for Hillary to be president."

Democratic activist Connie Gronstal of Council Bluffs admitted she has been too busy to buy Clinton's new book, but she has another reason for not rushing to make the purchase.

"I want a signed copy," Gronstal said.

That means waiting for Clinton to bring her book tour to Iowa, she said.

So far, the closest city on Clinton's schedule is Chicago. That stop is this morning.

Trailing her to each stop is a red-white-and-blue bus emblazoned with "Join the movement" and "Ready for Hillary," the name of the super PAC that's encouraging Clinton to run in 2016.

That bus tour started in Iowa. On Saturday night, Ready for Hillary organizers invited longtime Democratic activists and newcomers to gather at Exile brew pub in Des Moines, to talk and connect, said Adam Parkhomenko, the PAC's executive director.

Later, when the bus was parked outside the Hampton Inn in West Des Moines or at local stores while organizers bought supplies for the road trip, "people were lined up taking pictures," Parkhomenko said. "The bus is a great hook."

Some Iowa Democrats hope Clinton will come for the last steak fry of Tom Harkin's tenure in the U.S. Senate. The fundraiser has been a rite of passage for Democrats with an eye on the White House.

But Harkin hasn't made a formal invitation to anyone to be the keynote speaker for the fall 2014 event, an aide said. "While the Clintons are always welcome in Iowa, plans are still coming together for the final steak fry," Harkin spokeswoman Kate Cyrul Frischmann said.

In an interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer that aired Sunday, Clinton said she "will be on the way to making a decision by the end of the year."

Which could mean Iowans won't catch sight of Clinton here until 2015.