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Obama's WV Strategy?
Until today, it appeared that the Obama campaign was planning to simply concede West Virginia without a fight. But today, Obama gave a fairly well received speech in Charleston.
Could this be an attempt by the Obama campaign to bump up his poll numbers under the radar, so that they can claim he did better than anyone expected? We'll see tomorrow, but I suspect their internal polling has given them reason to believe that they can limit the loss to 20 points or so. That would be a big surprise to most in the media, and could change the discussion tomorrow, taking some of the edge off of Hillary's expected win.
I'll be very interested to see how this one plays out.
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Comments (8)
I don't think it's a stop gap measure. The Obama campaign has known about the big point spread in WV for a long time. It would be irresponsible to ignore the state altogether. But showing up a day before the primary doesn't seem to be a strategic attempt to lessen the loss there.
Sen. Clinton is expected to win by at least 40 pts.
May 12, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or it may simply be that, having adopted a 50-state strategy so to speak, he didn't want to insult WV by not even making an appearance, even if it isn't likely to change the primary outcome and even if he is willing (perhaps readily willing) to let Clinton have her moment in the sun.
The fact that he's given recognition and importance to **every** state, and physically gone to all he could reach in a reasonable time frame, has been a very positive aspect of his campaign. No "you don't count because you won't vote for me" (or are too small or are too red, or whatever). I'm glad he went to WV and trust he will go to Kentucky as well.
May 12, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's in Lexington tomorrow, I think.
May 12, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
i see a 40 to 60 point win.:):)
May 12, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
It could be a 100% win and it wouldn't change the fact that HRC has lost.
May 12, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
How many states did Hillary go to in February when Obama wracked up his 11-state winning streak? She wasn't even going to try in WI, and then started the negative campaign about 5 days before.
So if Hillary wants to make a case that he "neglected" WV (which I have heard out of Bill's mouth), then let's wrack up the list of states she's neglected.
Bill's comments about ID last week are stunning:
Idaho Democrats sounded off Wednesday against former President Bill Clinton and his campaign comments about Gem State politics.
Clinton, while campaigning in Indiana for his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, was quoted in national media as saying she would "bag" No Child Left Behind laws. "Every time I say this, it's a guaranteed applause line," he said. "You can drop me in the middle of Idaho where there's not a Democrat in 200 miles and an elk would applaud me on that."
Idaho Democrats called Clinton's comments an insult. They said the state party is making a comeback - after suffering setbacks during Clinton's two terms in office.
"If Bill Clinton had done for elk in Idaho everything he did for Democrats, we'd have far fewer elk," said Idaho Democratic Party Chairman Keith Roark - an uncommitted superdelegate - Wednesday morning.
Sen. Clinton's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Roark was leaning toward Obama anyway:
Barack Obama will provide far more support for our down ticket races he will run much stronger in the state of Idaho than Hillary Clinton can or will."
I hadn't read this comment until today. Thought I'd share.
Remember this when they say how important WV is tomorrow.
May 12, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I've nailed it, actually. I think his strategy is to cut his loss to 20-25 points and then put out a release saying that Clinton had come up short from what was predicted. The whole thing has to be stealth, though, so the press isn't paying attention.
We'll see...
May 12, 2008 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Postmortem: I was totally wrong.
May 15, 2008 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
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