Setting the Feb 5th Goal Post

It’s all about the delegates baby!

TO: Interested Parties

FROM: David Plouffe

DATE: January 28, 2008

 

RE: State of the Race Post South Carolina

After four contests, Barack Obama has earned the most delegates – a fifteen pledged delegate lead over Senator Clinton – and a clear lead in total vote casts from the four early caucuses and primaries. (snip)

We are well situated for the 22 states and American Samoa on February 5. We have staff in all 22 states – in some cases dating back to September. We are advertising in most of the states with mores states to be added this week, and have a vigorous mail program. (snip)

Our goal on February 5 is quite simple – amass as many delegates as we can and in that process put some state wins on the board. Because of the sheer number and the diversity of the contests on February 5, we do not believe there are or should be “bellwether” states. The Clinton campaign has already begun to signal that they will cherry pick some states to demonstrate success, but as the Clinton campaign often says, (except when it is talking about success in Florida and Michigan) “This is a race for delegates.” At some point early in the morning of February 6^th there will be a black and white evaluation of how each of us has done. The whole picture will tell the story.

We believe we are in a strong position in many states right now. Yet, even in states where Senator Clinton enjoys a lead, in most cases she is far below an eventual “win” number, not to mention that we are starting to see some of her soft support being shed as voters in these states really start to engage in the decision in front of them – a dynamic we saw play out in the early states.

So while the Clinton campaign will likely wave shiny baubles in front of the media to try and divert their focus to certain states – or non-events like Florida – we will stay focused on doing as well as we can in each of the 22 states on February 5^th and preparing for the nine states that come in rapid succession in those following two weeks.

Emphasis mine.