Madness

Barack Obama for President has scheduled a rally where he will appear on Saturday.

In Rhode Island.

I went to college in Rhode Island, so I'm happy to see the Ocean State get some love, but to put it bluntly, this is insane. It's much crazier than leaving Wisconsin while holding only a 4-7% lead. In the Wisconsin case, he at least had the excuse that he needed to start campaigning in Ohio and Texas; this time, winning both Ohio and Texas would effectively end the nomination contest, he's in no danger of losing Wyoming or Mississippi, and there are six weeks until the Pennsylvania primary. Getting a few delegates in Rhode Island or Vermont would be nice, but only the results from the big states will change the race's dynamics.

Can anyone come up with a good explanation for this one? Anyone? Bueller?

Comments

[Trevor J]

Groundwork for the general?

[Sir Charles]

I disagee Nick. I think RI is the kind of state where this one appearance could make a huge difference and possibly swing it into Obama's camp. I was saying yesterday that he should do this.

I don't think it costs him anything in Ohio and Texas and may allow him to steal a win.

[FearItself]

1) Obama may want to keep his unbeaten streak alive; if he sweeps Tuesday's primaries, taking even Rhode Island, it's hard to see how Clinton could justify staying in it until PA, even if she wins the primary (non-caucus) portion of Texas and/or virtually ties him in Ohio.
2) He may want to be able to say he campaigned in absolutely every state he could. This would reinforce his unity message. It might also help mollify any voters in Michigan and Florida who resent his refusal to break the rules and run stealth campaignS there. (Although this argument would be weakened somewhat if he didn't go to Alaska and Hawaii, and I don't think he did.)
3) Maybe he has internal polling that's been more accurate than the published polls, and he's less worried about TX and OH than we think he should be. (I mean, he was right about Wisconsin, wasn't he?)
4) Maybe he's concerned about Massachusetts in the general, and this is his first effort to shore up support there, and in New England generally.

[Paul]

My guess is that he really follows Dean's fifty state strategy as closely as he can: even if the Ocean State only has a few delegates compared to Ohio and Texas, by campaigning there, he is showing that he is trying to put *every* state into play.

The question is, if he gets the Dem Nomination, how hard is he going to campaign in the general election in states where, bluntly, he has a snowball's chance of winning it. And will that cost him overall?

[Edmund in Tokyo]

Crazy as it may sound, could it be that when Obama says he's trying to bring millions of people together to build a coalition for change, he actually means it?

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Look, I get all the fifty-state strategy, but there are times where other things take precedence. His campaigning in Columbus was partly overshadowed by a huge snowstorm that knocked him off A1. Making one more stop in that media market makes much more sense.

In addition, OH and TX both have early voting, so they can put his rally near a polling place and use that to drive his turnout.

[dm]

There might be a bit of hubris in this, but I think he may now be thinking beyond the primaries to the general election. And he may be thinking beyond the Presidential election to the down-ballot elections.

The Obama campaign uses candidate appearances as organizing tools. In addition to firing people up, his people get names and contact information. He gets people to staff phone banks --- calling states like Ohio and Texas as well as their neighbors.

He may even be thinking beyond the election to governing. The time might come when a president might value a little constituent pressure on a Rhode Island congressmember.

[Matt Weiner]

he may be thinking beyond the Presidential election to the down-ballot elections.

Are any of the Rhode Island congresspeople (all Dems) not mortal locks for reelection? And the governor's not up until 2010.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

I guess he thinks he's got enough momentum in the pipeline in Ohio, plus another few appearances there, that one appearance might be enough to swing the state and win all for. That is, if you have a choice between a 35% chance of winning OH and a 35% chance of winning RI, or a 45% chance of winning OH versus a 0% chance of winning RI, it makes some sense.

[tom.a]

There may be a little Obama/Hillary fatique in TX and OH at the moment and he's got the cash to spend jet setting around so why not spend a day in a small state that he just might win, or at least close the gap enough to make Hillary's win there meaningless.

[strasmangelo jones]

I like my adopted state as much as anyone, but I've got to agree with Nick. No one's looking at RI and VT on Tuesday; all eyes are on Texas and Ohio. I don't know what the strategy is here. Either the Obama camp is incredibly confident of thwarting a Clinton win in those states, or they scheduled this way in advance and figured it would look bad to cancel.

It should be noted that most of the recent polling in RI has Clinton up by quite a bit here - not that there's been all that much recent polling, or that anyone really solid has been conducting them.

[Beige]

Does anyone really care one way or the other? I read a bunch of political blogs. I'm relatively plugged into the process. I was vaguely aware that some of the candidates were in my state shortly before the election, to the extent the snow storm didn't disrupt their plans too much. Who was in which city when I had no clue. It's not like I was going switch to supporting endless new wars because my favorite candidate was in the wrong city on my favorite day or spent too much time in Rhode Island or something.

[Trevor J]

"No one's looking at RI and VT on Tuesday"

Except the Clinton campaign which is now saying that if Obama doesn't sweep all four states, it's a win for Clinton.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Beige: if you look at the polls in Ohio, Obama improves by 10 points in media markets where he's held rallies. each rally generates overwhelmingly positive coverage that is A1 above-the-fold and leads every local newscast. There is a reason that Karl Rove thinks the thing that would have helped Bush most in 2000 was "get a faster plane".

We'll get a better picture of this in Texas, when we can compare performance in Brownsville (where Obama will have appeared twice) to el Paso (where he will have appeared once).

[Joel W]

Don't those rallies and media have diminishing marginal returns? Which media markets would Obama change the delegate split in Texas with? Ohio? It's entirely plausible to me that the math has been done, Obama has basically maxed out his delegates in Ohio and Texas. Rhode Island is basically one large media market, with one newspaper. One Obama appearance there, and he may flip a delegate or two.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Obama's only done one appearance in the Columbus media market in the last 2 weeks ... and it was in the middle of a snowstorm that knocked him off A1. Columbus accounts for 20% of the electorate, so a 10 point swing in each direction takes it to a dead heat.

If I were Obama I would go there, though maybe that is scheduled for Sunday or Monday.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

And again, at this point an additional delegate or two won't matter. Obama is at a point where unless a catastrophe occurs, he will have a Florida-and-Michigan proof lead among pledged delegates. The goal at this point is to drive Clinton out of the race, and the only way to do that is to win the popular vote in Ohio and Texas.

[ikl]

It is still a delegate race. Whether Clinton stays in the race is about delegate margin more than anything else. RI has delegates. It is one media market and a visit could potentially swing more votes there than another appearance in Ohio and Texas. It is odd that you are asking this question. This is the same logic by which Clinton didn't bother with lots of states on Super Tuesday (Utah, Idaho, Kansas, etc.) and Obama got to run up the score there. Ignoring Rhode Island would be the same mistake.

[low-tech cyclist]

It may still be a delegate race, but Obama's remaining appearances are going to affect the delegate count less than a double win in TX and OH would - because that would set off a serious superdelegate stampede in his direction.

I've been saying for a few days now that Team Hillary is spinning itself. At absolute best, they break even with Obama over the next week and a half, because it's too late for them to win TX, OH, and RI by enough to compensate for losing WY and getting trounced in VT and MS, believe it or not.

Squeaking out a win in TX, and winning OH by 8-10 points and RI by 15 would give them a self-justification for spending six weeks in PA. But they'll pick up 20 delegates (max) in PA, and lose them right back in NC. Then it's down to the pawn endgame of IN, OR, KY, and smaller states. At the end of it all, even if no superdelegates declare, Obama will still be ahead by 100 delegates.

That's Team Hillary's best freakin' case: to be no further behind in the second week of June than they are now. And then somehow conjure up a win out of superdelegates and a FL/MI favorable resolution.

[ikl]

I understand that Obama is in suburban Columbus tonight.

I'm not a believer in leaving delegates on the table - I might have even scheduled a brief stop in VT if I were in charge of Obama's schedule - because of the wierd way that they assign delegates, he could actually take the vast majority of the 15 delegates if he gets over 55%. Of course, I'm sure that they do internal polling on this and it is possible that we is assured of getting 55% without a visit.

The thing is that if Obama doesn't score a knockout in Ohio in Texas, then it could be very important what the delegate margin is after MS and WY. I would think that there would be lots of pressure on Clinton to get out if the delegate margin is no less after WY than it is now. RI and VT could make a diference in that calculation.

[ikl]

Correction: Obama is in suburban Cleveland tonight and suburban Columbus on Sunday:

http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=804#comments