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February trouble for Clinton
She's out of money, and most of the Feb. primaries favor Obama. What we can look forward to next week:
It's a hell of a start to a six-day period where she could lose as manyhttp://reason.com/blog/show/124843.html
as seven primaries. On Saturday, Washington, Nebraska and Louisiana go
to the polls. Washington is a caucus where Obama is favored by 20
points, Nebraska is another one of those flyover caucuses that Obama
dominated last night, and Louisiana, even post-Katrina, has one of the
biggest black electorates in the country. On Sunday there's Maine, on
Tuesday there's D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. Clinton has signaled only
that she'll compete for Virginia and Maine.
Moreover, due to lack of funds, it looks like she's focusing mainly on big state primaries in March & April:
Clinton, with less money to spend and less confident of her prospectshttp://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iU_P23eyGmxqE8EEa7ba6r86BpIwD8UL4P9O0
in the February contests, will instead concentrate on Ohio and Texas,
large states with primaries March 4 and where polling shows her with a
significant lead. She even is looking ahead to Pennsylvania's primary
April 22, believing a largely elderly population there will favor the
former first lady.
I think that strategy worked ok on Tuesday, when all the states voted at once, but it's more problematic when the next big states aren't until March. Obama will score a lot runs before Texas and Ohio even get up to bat, and that could create momentum that makes Clinton look increasingly like the loser. Obama movement could be particularly important for the big three endorsement holdouts: Gore, Edwards, and Richardson.
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