Obama's Expectations Gamble

by J Ro [courtesy of MyDD]

The expectations game should be familiar to everyone by now. Typically, campaigns try and underplay their own expectations while hyping up the chances of their rival. This way, come election day when their candidate does "better than expected," they can claim victory while their rival, coming in under expectations, is handed a defeat. The vote totals don't seem to matter, it's all about expectations.

Hillary Clinton's advisers are no slouches when it comes to managing expectations, and they seem to be doing it more consistently as this primary season rolls along.

Both campaigns played the game back in the early primaries, but Clinton seemed to come out ahead. Especially before New Hampshire, a state that had pretty much always favored Clinton, the campaign made some downright gloomy predictions:

The tone out of the Clinton campaign was future-focused, a seeming recognition that the fight in New Hampshire is all but over. "With just five days, it was difficult to stop the wave out of Iowa," said deputy communications director Phil Singer. "Our crowds here have been enormous and the enthusiasm we've seen has been extraordinary. Regardless of outcome, it's onward and upward."

Of course, the New Hampshire victory "reinvigorated" her campaign and allowed her to play Obama to a stalemate in the the early primaries.

Notably, Clinton is playing the same game with respect to the Texas and Ohio primaries on Tuesday, but Obama largely seems to be sitting this one out. Yesterday, the Clinton campaign sought to raise expectations on Obama in a memorandum that was widely publicized:

"If he fails to garner big wins, there's a problem," the memo states.

"The Obama campaign and its allies are outspending us two to one in paid media and have sent more staff into the March 4 states. In fact, when all is totaled, Senator Obama and his allies have outspent Senator Clinton by a margin of $18.4 million to $9.2 million on advertising in the four states that are voting next Tuesday."

"Senator Obama has campaigned hard in these states," the memo continues. "He has spent time meeting editorial boards, courting endorsers, holding rallies, and - of course - making speeches."

The Obama campaign hit back, saying that Clinton was the one who needed to win big to catch up in delegates, but otherwise, Obama declined to lower expectations for Tuesday. His website boasts of his winning streak and over 1 million supporters, and his campaign seems to be doing little to counteract news reports saying he's made inroads on Clinton's base among women and older voters.

This failure to mitigate expectations may turn out to be a mistake for Obama, if only because it may prolong the primary season. I don't know who will win on Tuesday. The polls have been tightening in recent days; any candidate could win either state. However, most of the people I know expect Obama to win in Texas and hold out hope for Ohio, even though he was behind by an average of 10 points in the polls in Texas just two weeks ago. Texas and Ohio have been Clinton country for months, and if she does win both states - even if it doesn't keep her in the delegate race - she can claim that her campaign has once again been reinvigorated, giving her reason to stay in through Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

Of course, the pendulum swings both ways. If Obama wins Texas and Ohio - or wins Texas and comes very close in Ohio - I think he can lay claim to real momentum, something that's been elusive in this contest so far. By failing to play the expectations game, Obama is taking a gamble. A big win for him on Tuesday will likely knock Clinton out of the race permanently. A loss, given the expectations, will likely keep Clinton in it for a while.

It's a gutsy move by the Obama camp, betting on a knockout victory on Tuesday. Can he pull it off, or do you think it will backfire?

Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, 2008 elections, expectations (all tags)