From Chauncey. This post comes on the heels of Super Tuesday, but considering the results from last night (Obama cleaning up in Virginia, DC, and Maryland), I don’t see how his analysis would be any different. (Sorry about the formatting, but I’m still getting the hang of WordPress)
The Expectations Game & Where We Go From Here
Don’t let anybody tell you the Clintons aren’t good at this “politics” thing. They are playing the expectations game like champs, having saddled Obama with the expectation that he win every primary & caucus before March 4th. That’s not to say that Obama can’t win all the states before March 4th, but the Clinton’s may succeed in blunting the momentum he receives from winning states that he’s “supposed to win.”
What happened on “Super Tuesday” is a prime example of the Clintons’ expectations game prowess. Tuesday could have been positioned as a clear-cut victory for Obama, but the story of the Obama “surge” prevented that possibility.
Of course, the Clinton’s are not primarily responsible for Obama’s artificially high expectations going into “Super Tuesday” – the media crush, his fundraising totals, and the Zogby California polls (all of which are out of his control) are responsible – but the Clintons get credit for successfully managing expectations.
Fostering the impression that Senator Clinton is “on the ropes” is a dangerous game (see; New Hampshire), and that’s why the Obama camp is doing its best to steer clear of it.
The current story of Clinton’s “financial distress,” is being used as an effective (short-term) fundraising tool, and also plays into their narrative of Obama now being the front-runner, which some media figures are picking up.
That beings said, if the best thing you got going for yourself at the moment is the ability to manage expectations, you are not where you want to be. The Clintons premised their campaign on inevitability, and were hoping that they could have put this thing out of reach yesterday.
The Clinton strategy now seems to be to survive until March 4th, and to have enough cash to win in Texas and Ohio. “Surviving” until March 4th may require her to win a state or two, and Maine and Virginia look like her best chances (see WashPo’s nice analysis of the February contests here). This strategy can certainly be successful, but it is also dangerous. If Obama does in fact win every contest between now and March 4th, his momentum may very well carry him to wins in both Texas and Ohio. If that happens, it’s a checkmate. But if Clinton does do well on March 4th, all eyes will be on Pennsylvania. Lacking a decisive victory there by either party, we could very well be looking at a stalemate.
