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When former Iowa Attorney General Bonnie Campbell's husband died in 2010, the first condolence phone call she received was from Bill Clinton. The second came from Hillary Clinton.

The Clintons checked in on Ed Campbell every few weeks as he battled a long illness, Bonnie Campbell recalled in an interview last week, serving if only over the phone as a shoulder to lean on.

"They have many more friends than just me, and closer friends," Campbell said of the former president and perhaps future president. "But when I hear people say Hillary seems cool and distant that's just not right. She's one of the warmest, most genuine people I know."

When Hillary and Bill Clinton arrive in Indianola this afternoon for the 37th Harkin Steak Fry, they'll rekindle relationships in the nation's leadoff presidential voting state that go back three decades and perhaps begin forming new ones as she deliberates another run at the presidency.

HARKIN STEAK FRY: More on the Clintons and the event

Campbell, a veteran of Bill Clinton's Department of Justice whom he later nominated (unsuccessfully) for a federal judgeship, is just one of many Iowans sharing a long history with the powerful couple.

A 2016 campaign in Iowa would almost certainly combine members of that trusted network with a new generation of campaign talent, many of whom came up over the past seven years in the Obama campaign machine, Iowa politicos said last week.

Beyond Campbell, the loyalists include Jerry Crawford, an Iowa fixer dating to Bill Clinton's presidency, and former Gov. Tom Vilsack and his wife, Christie. The new crew will skew younger, and comes with resumes mentioning President Barack Obama's victorious Iowa campaigns and Ready for Hillary, the independent pro-Clinton group active in the state.

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NEW YORK - Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Friday for a "unified strategy" to end violence against women by terrorists, warning that the practice is growing within groups like ISIS.

"What happened to the Yazidis in Iraq and the hundreds of girls and women kidnapped and forced to become wives, so to speak, of the ISIS terrorists is a tactic that is very ancient," she said. "We had reason to believe [the tactic] was not going to persist in the 21st century, and now it is."

Clinton identified the Lord's Resistance Army, a notorious rebel group based in the Central African Republic, as being "at the forefront of that horrific behavior." Recently, other groups like Boko Haram have adopted its well-documented practice of kidnapping young children, she said.

"In some countries, the kidnapping of girls is not viewed as that serious and you don't see the kind of outrage and commitment to action from governments that you would hope to see."

Clinton's comments came during an hour-long conversation with her former speechwriter, Lissa Muscatine, at the "Women and Girls Rising" conference hosted by the Roosevelt Institute at the Ford Foundation in New York City. Her appearance highlighted her work for women's rights throughout her career, but Clinton also focused on what has not yet been accomplished.

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"Girls and women deserve to be at the center of American foreign policy," she said. "It's reflective of our values. It's part of who we are. It's the unfinished business of the 21st century."

On domestic violence, Clinton reiterated her stance that violence between parties that know each other is "criminal," not "cultural," and requires "criminal responses."

She acknowledged incidents of violence between strangers as another area that requires greater attention and accountability of the government, especially at the local level.

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Hillary Clinton seeks end to gender violence by terrorist groups

She is building stamina through tough new workouts with a personal trainer and yoga. She is talking about how to address income inequality without alienating corporate America. And she is reviewing who's who in the Democratic Party in Iowa, a crucial early voting state in the presidential cycle.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has said publicly that she will decide early next year whether she will undertake a second campaign for the presidency. (Read) But inside the Clinton operation, the groundwork is already quietly being laid for a candidacy.

On Sunday, Clinton will appear at the 37th annual Iowa steak fry hosted by Sen. Tom Harkin; it will be her most overtly political appearance since resigning as secretary of state in February of last year.

Meanwhile, the largest Democratic fundraising group, Priorities USA, which helped get President Barack Obama elected, recently rebranded itself as a vehicle to help Clinton. Publicly, the group says it is focused on raising money for Democrats for this fall's congressional elections, but privately, Priorities has already started reaching out to donors to secure 2016 commitments for Clinton.

"It's very obvious what's she going to do," said Sue Dvorsky, a former chairwoman to the Iowa Democratic Party. "Clearly she's going to run."

Of course, the former first lady can always decide to take a pass on a campaign. Before the 2004 presidential election, former Vice President Al Gore crisscrossed the country to promote his books, deliver speeches and even poked fun at himself on "Saturday Night Live," sparking assumptions that he would seek to unseat President George W. Bush. But in December 2002, Gore declared that he would not run.

But Gore did not have a groundswell of support within the Democratic Party and had run into potential problems raising money. (There was no "Ready for Al" group signing up supporters.) And, back then, the Democratic Party had a larger field of other viable candidates including Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and John Edwards of North Carolina.

The signs pointing to Clinton running are big and small.

Lately, when supporters wish her good luck in the 2016 presidential campaign, she responds with a simple "Thank you," rather than explain that there is no campaign and that she has not yet decided whether she will run, as she did previously.

Priorities has held informational meetings with donors like Bernard L. Schwartz, a New York investor, and J.B. Pritzker, a Chicago-based philanthropist, to discuss a 2016 strategy and how much money will be needed to take on Republican super PACs.

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