February Surprises

4 thoughts on “February Surprises”

1. I’m not sure if this is a surprise or not, but I’m putting it on the list.

   Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had a teary-eyed moment on the campaign trail today during a nostalgic visit to Yale

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2. From Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe:

   Two weeks ago, a Clinton campaign adviser told CBS News that they believed they could “wrap up” the nomination on February 5th. As the “inevitable” national frontrunner, tomorrow should be the day when she sews up the nomination or builds a formidable delegate lead. But because of Obama’s growing momentum across the country, the Clinton campaign is now unlikely to reach their stated goals of wrapping up the nomination tomorrow.

   Senator Clinton is certainly the favorite on February 5, given the huge leads she has held in many of these contests throughout the course of the campaign and the political, historical and geographic advantages she enjoys in many of these states.

   For example, California, which Clinton led by 25 points in October and 12 points two weeks ago, was once seen as the Clinton campaign’s firewall and where they planned to run up an insurmountable lead in delegates. Former Governor Gray Davis, a Clinton supporter, said on MSNBC last week, “I am pleased to be for Hillary Clinton and I expect her to do very well in Super Tuesday. I expect her to win California by a sizable amount, at least double digits, do well in New York and New Jersey and Connecticut.”

   Based on her huge head start, Hillary Clinton should still win California, but is unlikely to achieve her goal of getting a sizeable share of the delegates.

   Our path to the nomination never factored in a big day for us on February 5.  Rather, we always planned to stay close enough in the delegate count so that we could proceed to individually focus on the states in the next set of contests.

   We fully expect Senator Clinton to earn more delegates on February 5th and also to win more states. If we were to be within 100 delegates on that day and win a number of states, we will have met our threshold for success and will be best positioned to win the nomination in the coming months.

   A performance that exceeds those benchmarks, while unlikely, would put is in a surprisingly strong position heading into the rest of the February contests.

   While the Clinton campaign is furiously trying to spin the expectations game, it is important to look at where they were in some of the key states just a few weeks ago.

   You can take a look at where the polls stood just a few weeks here where Clinton was in front by double digits, and could either win by a small % or lose all together.  

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   1. here are some polling updates from a few of the Fat Tuesday states.

      CA, CT, MO, and MA., are all seem to be moving towards Obama.

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