Showing the personal side of Clinton

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton spoke at a town hall meeting with daughter Chelsea and mother Dorothy Rodham, in Winterset, Iowa, on Dec. 8. (KEVIN SANDERS/Associated Press)

DES MOINES - Hillary Clinton's aides have long said that she is the most famous person nobody knows. Campaigning in Iowa yesterday with her husband and basketball legend Magic Johnson, she suggested a possible reason: She's shy.

"I know that people think, 'Well, we want to know more about her personally,' and I totally get that," she told reporters at a Hy-Vee supermarket.

"It's a little hard for me . . . It's not easy for me to talk about myself. I'd rather talk about Magic," she said, turning to Johnson.

That, she said, is why she has dispatched childhood friends and people she has helped over the years to the campaign trail. In appearances around Iowa and in videos on a campaign website, they have told funny stories about her youth and emotional tales about how she helped them cope with tragedy in their lives.

Clinton certainly isn't shy in trumpeting her qualifications to be president, telling audience after audience that she has the strength and experience to do the job on day one. And she has been telling anecdotes about her youth for months. But she is more reticent than many politicians, including her husband, about showing emotion.

At an event in Iowa on Monday, by the time her childhood best friend and three other people had finished their moving tales about her loyalty, the only one on stage who didn't look close to bursting into tears was Clinton herself.

Clinton has also campaigned with her daughter, Chelsea, and mother, Dorothy Rodham, who as the star of a television ad, attests to her daughter's virtues.

But Clinton hasn't been seen on the trail with her husband for weeks. So it seemed like the culmination of the campaign's humanizing project when they appeared together at the Hy-Vee's cafe to autograph the T-shirts of high school basketball players and shake hands with school officials.

Johnson, who said the country needed a president with Clinton's experience, not a "rookie," was generous with high-fives.

"We just met a legendary basketball player," said one of the players, junior Devon Cort. "And the president."

"And the senator," added Lavell Bell, a senior and another basketball player.

Bill Clinton wandered away from the cafe and deep into the produce section, with reporters following him from the deli case to the poinsettia display.

Asked about the little time he's been able to spend with his wife, he said: "It's the most difficult part of this, you know. The most efficient use of our efforts is that she's in one place and I'm in another."

The former president has been campaigning heavily across Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire, and he was due to make several stops with Johnson yesterday while his wife headed elsewhere.

"She worked for me from 1974 until I left the White House in January of 2001," he said, "so the way I calculate it, I still owe her about 19 years."