Posted by Jed Lewison on Sat May 10, 2008 at 10:58 AM Pacific

Calibrating expectactions

Poblano makes a good point about Tuesday's primary in West Virginia:

One unrelated point that's probably not worth a post unto itself. The Obama campaign has one more vulnerability in this race, which is that the results of West Virginia are going to be much worse than most of the media seems to understand. We're talking a 25-point loss if he has big momentum coming out of North Carolina. That's on a good day. On a bad day, he could lose by 40-50 points. Congressional Districts throughout the Appalachians that are similar to West Virginia have gone to Clinton by 2:1 or 3:1 margins.

As such, the Obama campaign will have to fend off one last bad (though almost certainly not terminal) news cycle. And therefore, I'd expect them to hold back any truly huge superdelegate endorsements (Edwards, Gore) until that time. This is not based on any inside knowledge; it's just too logical a strategy for things to proceed any other way.

Of course, it won't make a difference for the outcome of the nomination battle, but it does mean that there will be a day or two of buzz about Clinton's performance, and she will probably once again play her card. Such is life, though. She's done.

Calibrating expectactions

Poblano makes a good point about Tuesday's primary in West Virginia:

One unrelated point that's probably not worth a post unto itself. The Obama campaign has one more vulnerability in this race, which is that the results of West Virginia are going to be much worse than most of the media seems to understand. We're talking a 25-point loss if he has big momentum coming out of North Carolina. That's on a good day. On a bad day, he could lose by 40-50 points. Congressional Districts throughout the Appalachians that are similar to West Virginia have gone to Clinton by 2:1 or 3:1 margins.

As such, the Obama campaign will have to fend off one last bad (though almost certainly not terminal) news cycle. And therefore, I'd expect them to hold back any truly huge superdelegate endorsements (Edwards, Gore) until that time. This is not based on any inside knowledge; it's just too logical a strategy for things to proceed any other way.

Of course, it won't make a difference for the outcome of the nomination battle, but it does mean that there will be a day or two of buzz about Clinton's performance, and she will probably once again play her card. Such is life, though. She's done.

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