Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Taking Stock: Tallying up Advantages for the Race Ahead

The Money: This race has already consumed record amounts of cash, and we're scarcely halfway through. Campaigning takes ever-increasing amounts of money, for television ads and polling, for paid staff and for volunteers, for office space and for lawn signs.
Obama: The Obama camp raised an astonishing $32 million in January, $25 million of that from mostly small-dollr donors via the internet. That enabled them to go on the air in all but two Feb 5 states - and also to begin airing ads in states with contests through Feb 12. Obama reportedly spent $12 million on TV in the past two weeks alone. His dependence on small-dollar internet fundraising now provides a critical advantage, as he can raise funds more quickly, and return to those who have already donated for another round. Look for a press release within 24 hours trumpeting the dollars flowing in after Super Tuesday.
Clinton: In one of the strangest twists to the primary season, Hillary Clinton is now facing some significant fundraising challenges. She outraised her rivals in 2007, and fundraising has always been one of her key strengths. She's done much better at persuading her donors to give the maximum allowable contribution, and many have gone a step further, writing checks for her general election fund. But the river of cash is slowing down. In January, she raised $13.5 million - impressive in any other year, but not enough to keep pace. She spent $9 million, to Obama's $12 million, on television in the last two weeks, and has yet to go on the air in the remaining states. So there's no doubt that she's hurting here. But at the same time, she's likely to raise enough money to remain competitive. It doesn't take tens of millions to win a race (although that rarely hurts), it takes a better message and a more compelling candidate. And Clinton should be able to get her hands on enough cash to stay competitive.

The Delegates: Anything I choose to write here is likely to be out of date by the time it gets posted. But indulge me in a little math. It takes 2,025 delegates to secure the nomination. Of those, 722 are superdelegates, not bound by the results of any primary or caucus. Just over half the pledged delegates have been awarded, and just under half the superdelegates have announced their commitments. This race remains wide open.
Clinton: Going into Super Tuesday, Clinton held an edge on the strength of her endorsements from superdelegates. By the only transparent count, she had 201 to Obama's 110. That tally will grow this morning - some (like Sen Barbara Boxer) were holding off, but promised to follow the will of voters in their states. It certainly appears that teh candidates split the available pledged delegates yesterday; any edge enjoyed by either candidate will be small. Hillary believes that she can capture most of the remaining superdelegates, keeping the remaining contests close enough, when she doesn't win outright, to prevent Obama from overcoming her current lead. She's hoping that party insiders will ultimately announce in favor of the candidate of experience, and is counting on members of the Democratic National Committee, who constitute the bulk of the current crop the unpledged superdelegates, to back her.
Obama: Going into Super Tuesday, Obama held an edge among the pledged delegates who had been awarded. It's not clear where things stand this morning, but by most counts, he probably retains that edge. Winning a majority of the delegates awarded by voters gives him a powerful moral claim, but moral claims don't win conventions. He has enjoyed increasing success in winning superdelegates, particularly elected officials from red states, but still lags significantly with DNC members and overall. Those are not promising trends. He's certainly trailing this morning in the overall count, and faces an uphill struggle building a large enough margin in the remaining states to overcome Hillary's edge in superdelegates. He's banking on three things: that many superdelegates will be reluctant to tip the convention away from the candidate backed by a majority of pledged delegates, that most elected officials would rather he topped the November ticket than Hillary, and that a good number of the 411 superdelegates who have yet to endorse have been holding off because they dislike Hillary, but are afraid to cross the Clintons until they know they can be defeated. Those are persuasive theories, but there's been scant evidence to back them thus far.

The Calendar: Suddenly, all of the states that resisted the rush to advance their primaries to Super Tuesday are looking pretty clever. They were awarded bonus delegates by the DNC, in proportion to how late their primaries will be held, and will now enjoy the sort of attention to their issues and constituencies that few states lost in the rush of Super Tuesday managed to garner.
Obama: It's fair to say that the junior senator from Illinois is looking forward to the rest of February. Four of the ten remaining contests are caucuses; Obama won six of seven caucuses yesterday (losing only American Samoa). They play to his strengths in enthusiasm and organization, and to his red-state edge. The heavily-black Democratic primary electorates in Louisiana and DC should deliver both of those contests by healthy margins. The remaining primaries shape up as more contentious battles: Maryland and Virginia are fairly even matches, Wisconsin may tip toward Obama, like the rest of the midwest, and Hillary will likely carry the Virgin Islands. Still, for the next month, Obama can look forward to a steady drumbeat of victories, and a mounting edge in the pledged delegate count. That sets the stage for the six states in March, when Texas and Ohio are the big contests. Obama needs to build and broaden support in February to keep those big states close, or to have a chance at winning them himself, although he'll likely sweep the four smaller contests. And April is, for the moment, too far to contemplate.
Clinton: Hillary is acutely conscious of the dangers of February. She already has her surrogates pressing for a large number of debates, to ensure that Obama's coming success won't hijack the campaign narrative. She had recaptured momentum in the two leading tracking polls even prior to yesterday's election, and she knows better than to believe polls that show her trailing Obama in some of the remaining states. She wants to remain in the public eye, return the focus to the two of them on stage, and keep the races too close for him to emerge with a significant advantage. March brings more favorable terrain. Actually, the slow pace delivers certain advantages for Team Clinton. After February 19, there are no contests until March 4, a span of two weeks. That will give Clinton a chance to kick her relatively ponderous fundraising operation into high gear; she relies on personal networks and events to bring in cash, and that takes longer than internet appeals. It also gives her a chance to replicate Obama's more substantial field operations. And she can be fairly confident that she'll retain her overall edge in delegates even after the remainder of the February contests. That gives her two weeks, without the distractions of Obama's wins, to remind voters why they have favored her for most of the past year.

The only guarantee about these elections is that they'll be close, and unpredictable. And of course, there's always the chance that a scandal or a gaffe could upset all of these prognostications. But to a bleary-eyed observer this Wednesday morning, this is how things look.

(If you've found this summary useful, please recommend it, so that others can enjoy it, too. And as always, I welcome your comments.)

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