Obama wins the Wyoming caucuses

Obama scored one more caucus victory today by winning Wyoming. With 19 out of 23 counties reporting (including the state's 3 largest), Obama is leading 59% to 40% -- and that's a total of about 7,000 votes. The 4 remaining counties are only starting their caucuses now, and the results will be known in the coming hours. It is refreshing to deal with a caucus in a state that actually releases its results, unlike Texas where the count is stuck at 41% of precincts reporting.

Wyoming awards 12 delegates, and Obama has to cross 64% to obtain a 9-5 split. Considering that the remaining counties award fewer state convention delegates, it seems very unlikely that he will manage to do so, and the state's delegate breakdown will most likely be 7 delegates for Obama and 5 for Clinton. This represents somewhat of an improvement for Clinton, as one of the main reasons she is in so much trouble right now is that she was repeatedly crushed in caucuses -- especially in deep red states such as Wyoming. She got 17% of the vote in Idaho (for a 15-3 delegate split!), and was 20 delegates behind in Colorado and 24 in Minnesota.

Unlike most of these previous contests, Clinton did actively try to move numbers in Wyoming, as her husband campaigned there on Thursday and she did on Friday -- something she had not done in other caucuses, which she often deliberately shunned. There is no question that this is one of the biggest strategic blunders any presidential candidate committed in this cycle, and it is very surprising that it came from the seasoned Clinton campaign. More than anything, it speaks to their belief that the campaign would end on February 5th, whereas Obama knew that his only to win the nomination was to survive Super Tuesday and then take the lead in subsequent contests. The Clinton campaign now can only imagine what might have been if they had ran one or two ads in the cheap Idaho market or sent Clinton to Colorado and Minnesota for a few events.

Meanwhile, candidates are turning their attention to other upcoming states, starting with Mississippi (on Tuesday) but also those voting on May 6th (North Carolina and Indiana). It looks like Obama's strategy might be to minimize the importance of Pennsylvania on April 22nd to avoid making that state's primary -- in which Clinton looks to be starting with an edge -- decisive. Rasmussen came out with two interesting surveys today:

• In Mississippi, Obama is ahead 53% to 39%. Obama is ahead by 68% among black voters, and Clinton is up 47% among whites voters -- a stunning racial polarization that confirms the findings of yesterday's polls from ARG and IA.
• Meanwhile, Rasmussen found Obama leading 47% to 40% in North Carolina.

Both candidates have some good news in these surveys. Obama will clearly win in Mississippi and has an early edge in North Carolina. But Clinton can be reassured that she is not being blown away in Mississippi the way she was in some other Southern states, and that she has a fighting chance in North Carolina, a state that appeared to be rapidly moving away from her a few weeks ago. This is the second poll showing her trailing only narrowly, and especially if she benefits from momentum out of Pennsylvania she could hope to have a good night yet again on May 6th.

Looking ahead at the next batch of states

March 4th having brought no resolution whatsoever to the Democratic race, the race is pressing on to the upcoming contests -- Wyoming this Saturday, Mississippi on Tuesday and then a six week break until Pennsylvania on April 22nd. The Keystone state is the only state scheduled to vote in April, but there is then a bunch of elections in May, starting with "Mini-mini-Super Tuesday" on the 6th (Indiana and North Carolina).

Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign is also busy recovering from weeks of internal strife and tensions between top aides, which have undermined the efficiency of what was supposed to be a ruthless and unstoppable machine. Today, the Washington Post published a very well sourced must-read account of the intra-campaign fights that goes way back to the beginning of the year and even provides some new information (for example the fact that Bill Clinton decided by himself to go and blanket South Carolina in the days leading up to that primary, and that Hillary's entourage did not dare tell him to pull back because they had never been his entourage).

The article's main narrative predictably centers on Mark Penn and the number of times his innumerable enemies (Ickles, Patti Doyle, the "White Boys") have tried to get him fired or at least have tried to minimize his influence; in recent weeks, the different camps have been dueling to blame each other for the campaign's difficulties -- with expletive-filled arguments. The article also provides some background to the most puzzling question of this primary season: Why did Clinton entirely give up on Super Tuesday's caucuses, allowing Obama to run up huge margins there? It appears that some aides had warned against it, but that others -- including Sen. Clinton -- were too "burned" by Iowa to want to try that again.

There would have been infinitely more of this kind of stories had Clinton been eliminated on Tuesday. But right now, there isn't much time to be retrospective, as both campaigns are focusing on the elections of the next few days. Wyoming only awards 12 delegates, but keep in mind that it is in small states like this that Clinton fell so far behind in February. In Idaho, for example, the delegate split was a dramatic 15 to 3, a bigger margin than Clinton obtained in some of her strongest states like New Jersey. Accordingly, both Obama and Clinton are running radio ads in Wyoming -- a state that is certainly not used to hearing ads for Democratic presidential candidates. Bill Clinton is campaigning in Wyoming today, and will then travel to Mississippi, and Hillary might be in Wyoming tomorrow as well.

The big prize, of course, is Pennsylvania. And just as Clinton was climbing back in North Carolina yesterday, Rasmussen shows her to have momentum in the Keystone state:

• Clinton is now leading 52% to 37%, a significant improvement from last week's 4% lead.
• A 15% victory would undeniably help Clinton catch up some of Obama's delegate lead.
  

There are a number of factors that are going to make Pennsylvania very difficult for Obama. For one, it is a closed primary -- the first major closed primary we had have in quite a while -- which means that only registered Democrats will be allowed to take part in the vote. Obama has derived much help from independents and Republicans crossing over and favoring him, and Clinton has routinely done better among just registered Democrats, so this could help her not only win but also get a bigger margin of victory -- which is obviously essential to her chances, just as it was on March 4th.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post (once again!) takes a look at Pennsylvania's demographics and concludes that Clinton should be viewed as favored to win: The demographics are even more favorable to her than they were in Ohio: The electorate will be a bit older, and college educated voters will make a smaller share of the electorate. If Clinton holds to her electoral coalition -- which she has done in every contest except in Wisconsin (and, to a lesser extent, in the Potomac) -- the race should be prolonged beyond April 22nd.

And that gets us to Florida and Michigan. There is a renewed push for a solution in those states, and while the Clinton campaign is pushing that the delegates determined in January be seated, that seems like an unlikely scenario and the campaign must know that. They need Florida and Michigan delegates to catch up with Obama, and that makes it likely that they would endorse a re-do vote. Naturally, that carries a big risk: If Obama wins either of those states, it could give him a psychological boost that Clinton would have a hard time recovering from. But the battle is still one of delegates, and Clinton has to find reservoirs to tap into.

The Florida and Michigan Governors signed a common statement yesterday, urging the DNC to count the January contests and seat the delegates, though FL Gov. Crist was open last week to the possibility of financing another primary. Keep in mind that financing is a huge issue here: A re-do can't just be easily organized. Holding a second round of primaries would cost about $10 million in each state, and the DNC has said that it is not willing to pay the bill. So unless Gov. Granholm and Gov. Crist are willing to find that money in their state's budget, the do-over plans would be put on hold. Could the Clinton campaign offer to pay for part of it (two or three emails to her supporters could probably raise that much money).