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Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) -- If Hillary Clinton decides not to run for president -- and yes, that is still possible -- her return to the media lion's den might be a factor in her thinking.

She's done a national book tour and the paid lecture circuit, but Clinton got an up-close look at today's frenzied political news environment last weekend when she visited Iowa for the first time in seven years, a spectacle primed for an avalanche of media coverage given her expected campaign and her tortured history with the Hawkeye State.

I joined more than 200 other reporters who swarmed the scene and tweeted away, even though most Americans on social media that day probably cared more about Robert Griffin's ankle.

The press scrum that assembled to witness noncandidates Hillary and Bill Clinton flip Hy-Vee steaks with Sen. Tom Harkin -- behind a barricade, of course -- was as large, if not larger, than the media hordes that covered her at the height of her 2008 campaign.

One reporter got whacked in the head with the butt of a big television camera. Another photographer dramatically toppled off his ladder while straining to get a shot. It was a little absurd. When the Clintons approached the media zoo for question time, Bill Clinton leaned in and relished the scene. Hillary kept her distance.

Political Twitter, though, wasn't just a stream of gauzy Instagram-filtered pics of the Clintons: It was also rife with media criticism, some fair and some not, from politicos and press critics who pointed to the event as another example of lazy "pack journalism" with little journalistic upside.

The sniping had some credibility. What was the competitive advantage of being there, just one more reporter among the herd, all of us racing around to get the same quotes and the same pictures?

This was especially true for the many journalists in attendance who rarely travel outside of Washington or New York to cover politics but decided to open up their travel budget for this one trip.

Couldn't their time have been better spent reporting on an undercovered Senate or governor's race in some other part of the country, far away from the rest of the media scrum? Of course, the academics would say. But the incentive structure of today's click-driven news economy begs to differ. Hillary gets eyeballs. Arkansas' Tom Cotton does not. This is the world we live in.

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Clinton's media mob

President Bill Clintons White House staff worked for years to keep Hillary Clinton from becoming a political liability during investigations into the couples Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater.

After Bill Clinton became president in 1993, the couple endured scrutiny over a 1978 Arkansas real estate deal they had taken part in. While several Clinton associates were convicted of fraud in the failed venture, the Clintons were eventually cleared of wrongdoing.

The investigations included inquiries into Hillary Clintons legal work for a savings and loan that failed.

For a March 24, 1994, press conference president Bill Clinton was giving, the second bullet point on a draft of talking points reads: Defend HRC, using the acronym for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The memo was among the papers published online today by the William J. Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, as part of a regular release of documents from his presidency.

Stress her ethics and accomplishments as a lawyer and in doing public service work, it reads. No distance between you and HRC regarding Whitewater.

As Bill and Hillary Clinton prepared to do a joint television interview in March of 1994, a memo from Democratic strategist Paul Begala urged the president to take the lead.

In many joint interviews, the president defers to the First Lady, the memo reads. This may or may not be real, and it might be as simple as Southern manners, but its important that the President take the lead on this issue.

Other points in the Begala memo relate to defending the first lady from the public perception that she had become a political liability and wielded too much power in the White House.

Every First Lady has had her share of controversy, the memo reads. It goes on to cite poll numbers that showed high approval ratings for the first lady.

Hillary is the first First Lady to come to the job from a distinguished career of her own, independent of her husbands, Begala wrote. Like many two-career couples, the Clintons have had to find their own way in uncharted waters, juggling career and family.

More here:
Clinton Advisers Urged White House to Defend HRC

U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes has already shared a stage with President Bill Clinton, and now she will be in the spotlight with another member of the family when the former secretary of state joins her on the campaign trail.

Former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will try to boost Democrat Grimes' campaign to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is seeking a sixth term. Clinton's appearance is set for Wednesday night at the Kentucky International Convention in Louisville, Grimes' campaign said Friday.

"Alison has been a long-time supporter and admirer of Clinton's leadership and independence, and is humbled that she will be in Kentucky to endorse her campaign and her plan to get Washington working for Kentucky," Grimes campaign manager Jonathan Hurst said.

The event is open to the public, and free tickets will be available at all 120 county Democratic headquarters statewide, the campaign said.

Bill Clinton has made two trips to Kentucky this year to promote Grimes' campaign. He carried Kentucky both times he won the White House in the 1990s.

The Clintons' connection to Grimes goes back a generation: Her father, Jerry Lundergan, is a former state Democratic Party chairman and longtime Clinton friend. In 1993, as a 14-year-old, Grimes handed the president-elect a bouquet of roses while attending his inaugural festivities.

In 2008, both Clintons campaigned for Democrat Bruce Lunsford, who lost to McConnell in that year's Senate race.

McConnell's campaign on Friday dismissed the latest Clinton effort for a rival.

"Alison Grimes' entire campaign is designed to distract voters with shiny objects and celebrity appearances to conceal her inexperience and deceive voters from her true beliefs in the Obama agenda," said McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore.

Grimes was in Northern Kentucky earlier in the week. She addressed voters in Newport and spoke about the advertisements that have been running on TV.

Read more:
Hillary Clinton to campaign for Grimes in Kentucky

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