The Road: Hillary Clinton is taking a road trip across the country to her first presidential campaign stop in Iowa. She’s posting pictures of herself meeting average Americans along the way.

Yesterday at the end of a slickly produced video released on the Internet, Clinton declared herself a candidate for president saying, “Every day Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion.”

The video begins with a montage of people saying, “I’m getting ready” … to have a baby; start a new job; to move, to retire … to marry someone of the same sex. It features, young and old, white, black and Asian Americans. After a minute and a half a cheery Clinton says, “I’m getting ready to do something, too. I’m running for president.”

   Clinton said she intends to “earn” votes in an effort to avoid suggesting she has already earned the presidency. Her video suggests a link to common people, although oddly it was pre-recorded in the absence not only of common people, but any people at all.

So begins the long march of 18 months for the 67-year-old Clinton and a campaign that might raise as much as $2.5 billion.

The Gathering Crowd: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio today became the third Republican to announce he’s a candidate for president, saying he’s “uniquely qualified” to talk about the future. He’s a small government, tax cutting, anti-Obamacare Republican and a foreign policy hawk.

Rubio is gambling it all. Under Florida law he can’t run for president and re-election as senator at the same time.

Nation: Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, North Carolina was on lockdown this morning after one person was shot to death in the library. The shooter was still on the loose.

>Authorities in Tulsa, Okla. say no charges will be filed against a 73-year-old reserve sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed a suspect who was already face down on the ground. The deputy, Robert Bates, had said he reached for his Taser but pulled and fired his gun instead. The suspect, Eric Harris, 44, was the target of a gun-buying sting and ran when he realized he was surrounded by cops. He can be heard on video saying, “He shot me, man! Oh, my God.”

Bates is a wealthy insurance executive who volunteers with the sheriff’s department.

In the Name of Allah: A video released online appears to show Islamic State fighters last month hammering, blowing up and bulldozing the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, a relic of the 13t Century. They attacked representations of ancient Gods and kings. One militant says on the video,

“God has honored us in the Islamic State to remove all of these idols and statutes worshipped instead of Allah in the past days.”

The Obit Page: German novelist Günter Grass, once considered the moral conscience of his country in the years after World War II, has died at age 87. When Grass was awarded the Nobel Prize his novel “The Tin Drum” was described as “one of the enduring literary works of the 20th century.” Grass wrote about the destructive lies people choose to believe and later try to forget. So it was a great irony in 2006 when he revealed he had been a member of the dreaded Waffen-SS during the war.

The Master: Twenty-one-year old golfer Jordan Spieth won the Master’s tournament yesterday, tying the Tiger Woods record of 18 under 270 for 72 holes. It was Spieth’s first major tournament win.

Tiger Woods, who finished 17^th, said his wrist “popped out” when he was hitting his ball out of the rough. Woods was obviously in pain, but he continued to play.

Sloganeering:

-Hillary Clinton: “Hillary for America”

-Ted Cruz: “Win An Afternoon of Shooting With Ted”

-Marco Rubio: “We Need More Taxpayers, Not Taxes”

-Rand Paul: “Liberty Not Hillary”

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