Out goes ‘underdog,’ in comes ‘inevitability’

He also said that the only way she can prevent them from winning the nomination is by winning remaining contests in “blowout form.”

Plouffe should be careful. The ‘inevitable’ meme didn’t play out to well for the last candidate who used it. He’s overstepping.

In my little corner of the world, living in a red district, even lifelong Republicans are telling me that they’re rooting for Obama. That tells more of a story because it isn’t normal behavior for Republicans to actually support a democratic candidate, especially when they’re bringing it up themselves without being prompted.

There is light at the end of the Bush Administration nightmare. I usually end up sharing with them that McCain was a very good candidate back in 2000, but that for some reason he’s gone of the deep end with all his war mongering. They nod in agreement. No need to add anything else to it. Wouldn’t want them to change their mind again, because I said something progressive that doesn’t sit well with them.

I think that the media has skewed the fact that a lot of Republicans are against the war just as much as democrats are.

Obama’s campaign is doing the right thing by walking tall and acting proud. The scent of a winner only attracts more strength. The role of underdog only works at the start of a contest or when things are neck and neck. Underdogness sounds like a lack of confidence once in the lead.

Hillary can’t take up the underdog role because the word most people use for a once leader turned runner-up is “loser.” She have to work on scrappy or tenacious for adjectives describing her position.

Maybe this from Political Wire helps explain the Obama campaign’s actions:

Math Goes Against Clinton
First Read: “For Clinton to overtake Obama for the pledged delegate lead — which we think is the single most important statistic for the superdelegates to decide their vote — she’ll have to win 55% of the remaining delegates. Assuming next week goes Obama’s way in Wisconsin and Hawaii, that percentage rises to 57%. Toss in likely Obama victories in Vermont, Wyoming, Mississippi, Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota, then Clinton’s percentage need tops 60% of the remaining delegates available.”

If that analysis is close to correct, then there is something to this momentum thing. I believe Clinton can win Texas and maybe Ohio, but can she win 60% of the vote? I’m not so sure she can.

Looking at delegate counts however you like, it certainly is clear that Obama is ahead, but it is also clear that Clinton is not that far behind. But what I see as the real issue here is that for months and months now, Obama has run a better campaign. He has slowly and consistently caught up and now passed Clinton, and her onus is not just to stop that momentum, but after these decisive victories in the past week, turn it around and push back with her own. Given what seem to be her campaign’s internal problems, this is probably going to be difficult.

I’ll also say that if Clinton does not decisively win one of the big states coming up soon, she should gracefully withdraw and allow Obama to coast the last 5-10 yards to the goal line of the nomination. It would be what is best for the Democrat’s chances in the general election. If she does not, I think it will give an insight into who Clinton really wants to win in November, the country or herself. My guess is that she will step down if trends continue through the next few states; as bitter of a fighter as she can be, and as much I do disagree with her on issues, she does seem to have an air of magnanimity about her.

-c

@1 & 2: Yep. I couldn’t agree more.

@6: Hillary “walked tall and acted proud” until… well, actually, she’s still at it, though her campaign seems to have laid off of their own claims of inevitability. There is a very real danger for anyone in setting expectations and then failing to live up to them. The Obama campaign may have bitten off more than they can chew here.

Why DID the Hillary campaign basically cede the Chesapeake states and Wisconsin to Obama?

She is going to be in Wisconsin quite a bit.
Regarding the Chesapeake states: my guess is triage.

Triage is a stupid strategy when the delegates are awarded PROPORTIONATELY. Triage only works if you’ve got a pass-or-fail situation.

Not to sound silly here but WI is next to IL and I think that is going play in Obama’s favor. We Midwesterners are like that. 🙂

Triage is a stupid strategy when the delegates are awarded PROPORTIONATELY. Triage only works if you’ve got a pass-or-fail situation.

This is a great point that I haven’t seen made before (my apologies if it has been). The “firewall” strategy of focusing resources on a huge state or two you think you can win, rather than smaller ones, probably made a lot more sense in the Republican race since their delegate assignment is mostly winner take all. But on the Democratic side, a win for Clinton in either Texas or Ohio would have to be fairly substantial to change the delegate landscape. Obama’s continual large victories in small states add up pretty quickly — as we’ve been seeing lately — so unless Clinton wins Texas and Ohio by huge margins, they don’t really give her much of a delegate boost, just a moral boost from sustained losses.

I don’t like the term “inevitable” because it sounds arrogant. But I do like front runner because Obama has earned it by running a magnificent campaign, he is winning, and it would be false humility pretend otherwise. As long as he avoids irritating victory dances in the end zone it’s all good.

This is a great point that I haven’t seen made before (my apologies if it has been).

Well, I made it before, but I accept your apology. (Insert stupid smiley face here.)

There’s two reasons why Hillary’s firewall strategy is even worse than Guiliani’s, both rooted in the fact that the delegates in Democratic primaries and caucues weren’t winner-take-all.

Guiliani could reason that, if he wasn’t going to win those early states, he might as well bet it all on Florida because a winner-take-all system meant that finishing 2nd was the same as 6th, but if he took Florida, he’d get every vote it had.

For Hillary, the opposite is true. Finishing with 45% would’ve been much better than 35%, as she would’ve picked up a few more delegates. Conversely, she won’t get every scrap from Texas and Ohio either, as those will be split with Obama too. And meanwhile, her margins there will be chipped away by his momentum, which is important because she doesn’t just need a win now, she needs a wide margin in the win.

Baffling strategic error there. I’m sure Mark Penn only charged a million for it, too.

Even though he has stated that he is not interested in being vice president a close insider has stated that he wouldn’t turn it down because right now it appears his only likely chance to be president.

All of these meetings do seem to indicate he was pimping himself out…

As an Edwards supporter, I am very disappointed.

If Obama wanted to make a counter-offer to Edwards, I would suggest a Supreme Court nomination. Would be nice to have someone not corporately owned among the Supremes.

My dream ticket (as of now):
– Pres Obama
– Vice Webb
– Sec of State Richardson
– Sec of Treasury Rubin

– 1st Supreme Edwards
– 2nd Supreme Bill Clinton

– N.Y. Senator Hillary

Altough most endorements don’t mean alot in some cases I think with Edwars campaigning for Hillary in Ohio and PA would help most in the “rust belt” which would be crutial for either candidate. It could very well bring NC in play if he does indeed back Clinton. OR would be a great fit also.

If nothing else he truly beleives Hillary’s health care proposal is far better than Obama’s and of all things he cares about most that is probally his signiture concern and like he says if you don’t start with Universal Health Care you end up with much less than what will help the majority of americans. He knows it is unrealistic to get insurance companies to offer coverage for all under $2500.00 under Obams proposal because it just isn’t going to happen in our lifetime. Insurance companies are in business to make money not bow to politicians. Allowing ordinary americans to buy into the government health care plan is the most realistic approach.

This is what I posted at talking points memo. It’s basically impossible at this point for Clinton to catch Obama in pledged delegates. That truth is just becoming obvious, but on March 5th, it will be incredibly obvious, at which point HRC will, IMO, bow out (or if she doesn’t, the supers will coalesce around Obama and give him the numbers necessary to end it, and that will be that)

Here’s the calculations I did:

I said this after Super-Tuesday: barring an unbelievable collapse March 4th by Obama, it’ll be over March 5th. Here’s the reality the Clinton campaign has been facing, and that most are just waking up to now:

First, let’s assume a rough lead for Obama of 130 pledged delegates after yesterday.

Now, let’s look at states where he’s (or should be) generally favored from here on out. IMO we have: HI, WI, VT, WY, MS, NC, OR, SD. Reasons: HI is a home state; WI has a history with liberal-reformers; VT is Howard Dean’s home, v. liberal & anti-war and similar to CT; he’s shown huge strength in the mountain-west and prairie regions, so WY and SD should be givens; MS and NC have high black populations; downstate Washington is a good predictor for OR, and he did quite well there. Obama def. seems to have more appeal to the west-coast style liberalism that we see in places like Seattle, Colorado, etc, so Oregon is kinda natural for him.

Assume he and Clinton split the total delegates in those states evenly…that is, in all the states where demographically or intuitively he should be favored, he doesn’t gain a single delegate in his lead. That would leave available between now and the convention a total of 718 delegates available. For a 130 delegate advantage, then, Clinton would need to win 424 of those, to Obama’s 294. That’s a delegate share of 59.05% As others have noted, in order to win 59% of the delegates, you often have to either win in all the right places, or win with a lot more than 59% of the vote. As such, it’s worth noting a couple things:

Obama, not Clinton, is poised to win all the right places in Texas (Houston and the surrounding Katy/Sugarland suburbs, Dallas/Fort Worth area) and has consistently shown superior organization for caucuses, which will be important since Texas requires intense caucus organization (over 18,000 across the state…which is pretty expensive to deal with). Those are huge hurdles to over come, and since Texas is the biggest prize between now and the convention, representing over a quarter of the 718 delegates mentioned above, winning by small margins there will be crippling to her. If Obama duels her to a draw there, or she only gets a slight edge (say 17…that’s HRC winning 55% of pledged delegates), she’d need to win 61% (!) everywhere else in order to pull into a basic tied with Obama.

Even assuming that she somehow gets to her 59% delegate share in TX, the only states where she’s won 59% of the delegate share so far are: Arkansas (77% in an uncontested election), New York (59% on the dot in her home state), Massachusetts (60%), and Oklahoma (63% in what was, I think, also somewhat of an uncontested election). So, she’d basically have to repeat her very-best performances, two of which came in her home states and one in an uncontested election, for every contest in which she’s the nominal favorite from here on out.

And that’s assuming Obama doesn’t gain a single delegate advantage from any of the states in which he should be considered the favorite from here on out.

In short, it’s over. Some might not accept that until Obama expands his lead even more on WI and HI, and then she fails to win 60% of the delegate share from TX and OH, but that’s the way it is. In truth, Obama likely will reap big advantages from HI, WI, VT, WY, MS, etc etc, making Hillary’s task even greater. The state I pegged as leaning Obama comprise a total of 307 delegates. That’s a lot of ground for Obama to pick up even more delegate advantages. Hillary would win every other state by 60% in delegate share, and Obama only win those states by 55%, and he’d still end up with a ~30 delegate advantage. As we’ve seen, though, the trend is the opposite: when Hillary wins, it tends to be in the 50-55% range for delegate share, whereas Obama is the one who racks up big margins.

So, yeah. It’s over. And I don’t care if people think this comes off as smug, to be honest. That’s the math, straight up.

I think one thing the Clinton people didn’t take into account is that, if it came down to a delegate fight (which they clearly weren’t prepared for), it wasn’t enough to just win a state. You want to win BIG. Because it’s not winner-take-all, the bigger you win the state, the better. And now we’re really seeing the difference, as there were certain states that Hillray didn’t even try very hard in, and Barack has totally blown her out of the water. Even the Ohio-Texas strategy was bad, because she gave up all these states and allowed Barack to take huge leads in them.

So sure, Texas and Ohio have lots of delegates, but it’s no good if you’re splitting them evenly if your opponent already has crushing victories in the smaller places. For as much as this strategy was done by necessity, it was a horrible strategy all the same. Without a doubt, the Hillary people were not prepared for this at all, and it shows at every level. They were so geared to make the old strategies work as much as possible that they weren’t prepared for something new. I wonder where I’ve heard that before.