Sunday was a busy day in Iowa for Hillary Clinton. She rolled out the endorsement of former Vice President and Democratic Presidential Nominee Walter “Fritz” Mondale, spoke at a fundraiser for Democratic congressman Bruce Braley, and toured a hospital where she addressed local residents about the need for high speed internet access in rural areas.

There was also plenty of attention to the issues that have been facing her campaign since that watershed Democratic debate in Philadelphia last week, where she got hit by her rivals for seemingly inconsistent answers on Iran, Social Security, and illegal immigration. Her campaign has called it the “politics of piling on,” but Sen Edwards and others have accused Clinton of using her gender to play the victim. To that charge, Hillary now has a stock defense:  “I don’t think they piled on me the other night because I’m a woman, I think they piled on because I’m winning.”

But the campaign also seems to have developed a more subtle approach to spinning the debate in Iowa, where a negative ad war between front runners Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt led to John Kerry’s caucus victory in 2004. “I’m going to continue to run a positive campaign,” she said on multiple occasions, insisting that she’ll keep talking about what she’ll do on day one in the White House, not what she’ll say on a debate stage. And even Walter Mondale got in on the defense, saying Hillary “stayed focused on her positive vision for change,” and arguing that “now is not the time to tear down fellow Democrats with personal attacks.” Translation: those other guys aren’t playing nice. Or to paraphrase another Clinton line from an earlier debate, “If you want a nice candidate, she’s your girl.” Check out part of her responses here.done

And on the substance of some of those issues from the Debate? Take a listen to her answers to reporters on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants and those presidential records that are sealed away in the National Archives (including the records of her time on the Health Care Task force in 1993, which she says she believes were already released). done