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NEW ORLEANS Jerry Crawford, Hillary Rodham Clintons once and future main man in Iowa, was in his element: sorting through a pile of illegible notes, one eye tracking the latest reports on a mini-TV and another on an iPad stuffed with data. Weve Obamaed it up a little, he said with a smirk.

Crawford scribbled what looked like hieroglyphics his wife sometimes calls him Rain Man on a sheet of paper. Then he adjusted his prescription Oakleys and picked up his phone. So, ready to run?

Moments later Crawfords contender emerged, looking like a champion: Eager eyes. Thick skin under a brown coat. Quite literally champing at the bit.*

Keen Ice, his 3-year-old colt.

Its true: One of the major players in the quadrennial political horse race is an actual racehorse owner, too.

Soon Crawford will apply his Rain Man skills yet again to Clinton and the Iowa caucus. But today was all about Keen Ice and his mercifully shorter gallop around the New Orleans Fairgrounds track. If Crawford fails to send one horse to the White House, he at least hopes to send another to the Kentucky Derby.

A lawyer with white hair mowed like a golf-course fairway, Crawford is something of a kingmaker back home in Des Moines. He has shepherded every Democratic presidential nominee in the most important caucus state going back to 1980 every nominee except for one, that is. Crawford, 65, still blames himself for Clintons 2008 third-place finish in the Hawkeye State, from which her campaign never really recovered. He vows that 2016 will be his year to make it right for her. Im trying to make amends, he said.

[In Iowa, its steaks and high stakes for Hillary Clinton]

The same year Clinton lost, Crawford bought eight horses and started a racing partnership. The thing about both politics and racing, Crawford told me, is that both of them are really about trying to see the future.

As it happens, the two horses he has already taken to the Kentucky Derby came in third as well. For a man as competitive as Crawford, the next couple of years will be all about changing that storyline.

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Jerry Crawford has two goals: Delivering Iowa for Hillary Clinton and winning the Kentucky Derby