There's a bunch of speculation about how the delegates will fall out on February 5th, and a bunch of race-track betting on who will "win." There is also a lot of commentary about Obama's choices in not contesting New York and California as intensely as he "should."
My own sense is that the Obama campaign is playing a 'conservative' --no, not that way, dangit! -- game intended to minimize the impact of February 5th.
More interesting, I think this has been their strategy since mid-summer. And, to be bold, it is working so far.
One of the scenarios I heard as Obama campaign built its machine this summer -- early states give mixed results, nuclear Tuesday is still a tight race. It was clear that the campaign was planning a win-hold win game. It was a scenario that the campaign found comfortable.
The important thing is that the campaign's message and strategy has been crafted to win that scenario all along. This is not to say that they were going to turn down victories in NH and NV if they could grab them, but it is clear that they had focused on Iowa and South Carolina, the former as a break-through state, the latter as a firewall. And, frankly, I think they were pleasantly surprised with how well things went in the early contests.
I've been watching the campaign do what would normally seem impossible, which is rule the news cycle in the lead up to nuclear Tuesday, with heavy-hitting endorsements rolling out with nice regularity.
My guess is that the campaign is quite happy with the way things are playing out on this scenario -- the unpredictable elements are breaking out for Obama: vis. Teddy Kennedy's endorsement -- while the rest of the game is playing out basically as planned.
But the basic campaign strategy remains: win-hold-win. Win enough to earn media in the early states, hold on to delegate parity on Feb. 5, then begin to rack up real victories and momentum after nuclear Tuesday, when Obama's gift for retail politics (as well as the tide of itinerant volunteers) can really take hold.
So far, so good.
Even more heartening: Hillary may yet get lucky. But the feeling I get is that Obama's playing with a strategy. Hillary's playing tactically. This is important because her tactical victories (vis. NH) don't giver her as much traction as Obama's.
A great example: tearing up -- played well in NH to the feminist sisterhood. A tactical victory. But played right into the Obama strategy of the SC firewall -- the feminist sisterhood in SC has a very different view of the world.
Another example: "LBJ was the one who got things done" -- not a bad answer in the moment.. but not particularly well advised for three reasons. 1) HRC didn't have to run against MLK to win the presidency. 2) -- my favorite -- the Gulf of Tonkin brings back too many echoes: LBJ is the best example of the dangers to the wrong kind of experience 3) the biggie... not only was she 'running against' MLK, but also against JFK. Which led to her getting blindsided by Teddy Kennedy's endorsement.
This point is worth emphasizing. I believe the the Kennedy endorsement was truly a windfall for the Obama campaign -- I'm sure they courted him, but I don't think they particularly expected him to join the fray. In fact, they might have been disconcerted somewhat by the endorsement -- my guess is that had their endorsement rollouts scheduled already, and the Kennedy endorsements may have muddied this strategy somewhat. I don't think they're complaining much though. Rather, they’re using him to back up John Kerry (whose endorsement I suspect they had predicted) in what is becoming a more serious attempt to win (rather than hold) California.
In SC: Bill went tactical, trying to minimize the victory by downplaying it as a 'black' victory. It helped to prevent Obama from getting too much momentum from his (lopsided) firewall victory there, but it risked serious losses in the African-American communities voting on Feb 5, with only small gain amongst whites.