{"id":14568,"date":"2008-02-13T11:18:54","date_gmt":"2008-02-13T16:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14568.html"},"modified":"2008-02-13T11:18:54","modified_gmt":"2008-02-13T16:18:54","slug":"out-goes-underdog-in-comes-inevitability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/out-goes-underdog-in-comes-inevitability\/","title":{"rendered":"Out goes ‘underdog,’ in comes ‘inevitability’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As recently as the weekend, Barack Obama insisted he was still the underdog in the race for the nomination. Today, his campaign is trying out a new message: inevitability<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On a conference call this morning, Obama advisers sounded as confident a note as they ever have, arguing that yesterday’s victories have left them with an all but insurmountable lead in delegates.<\/p>\n

Obama adviser David Plouffe argued that yesterday’s wins netted them an astonishing 50 delegates yesterday, leaving them with a lead in pledged delegates of 136.<\/p>\n

He also said that the only way she can prevent them from winning the nomination is by winning remaining contests in “blowout form.” He said Hillary needs to win Ohio and Texas “by well over 20 points” to remain in contention, adding that “we see no evidence that that’s going to happen.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The message is hardly subtle. The Obama campaign is effectively telling donors and superdelegates that it’s time to get on board with the candidate who has the most votes, delegates, and states, and will continue<\/i> to have the most votes, delegates, and states. Obama’s team knows full well that Clinton backers are starting to waver, so they’re hoping to lower the boom.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Clinton campaign’s position isn’t that<\/i> bad. She’s focused on Texas and Ohio, and there’s ample evidence to show that Clinton really is in good shape in those states. The problem, obviously, is that March 4 is three weeks away — meaning that Obama will have time to close the gap.<\/p>\n

Last week, all we heard was talk of a brokered convention. This week, according to one campaign, the nomination is suddenly close to being a done deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As recently as the weekend, Barack Obama insisted he was still the underdog in the race for the nomination. Today, his campaign is trying out a new message: inevitability. On a conference call this morning, Obama advisers sounded as confident a note as they ever have, arguing that yesterday’s victories have left them with an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}