Team Obama hasn’t hit the panic button

The DC Dems may be freaking out at McCain’s ongoing post-convention boost, but inside the campaign things are proceeding as expected. No panic, no radical shift in strategy to meet the wildcard that is Palin.

I’ve been impressed with his entire campaign beginning with how he attacked the problem of facing John Edwards, and more importantly, Hillary Clinton. From day one in the primary Obama’s campaign saw the race as very close and formulated a strategy to win the number of delegates required to take the nomination. And they won.

The presidential race is being approached in exactly the same fashion. While the excitement rises and falls and expectations ride that wave, inside the campaign the strategy to win the required number of electoral votes (270) is running apace.

The war room keeps track of their internal polling in regards to hitting the magic number. Internal polling is one bit of political information that may be radically different between what numbers the campaign uses for projections – and doesn’t release — and what polling numbers the media rely on for its projections and analysis.

From the Ambinder link:

Every few weeks, former Sen. Tom Daschle, now a close confidant of Obama’s, convenes a passel of charter members of the Democratic political establishment in his office conference room Washington.  Daschle usually brings along a guest from the Obama campaign’s upper echelon. The guest briefs; the lobbyists, politicians and consultants talk politics.

The participants included Sen. John Kerry, former Indiana Rep. Tom Roemer, and James Johnson — all Obama allies — and former Michigan Gov. James Blanchard and lobbyist Michael Berman and and superlawyer Robert Barnett — all supporters of Hillary Clinton in the primary.

Today’s meeting, described by several who attended, began with a well-received briefing by deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand. State by state, he took the group through the campaign’s battleground strategy, made note of its budget assumptions (the campaign is ahead of its goals, he said) and bragged about a well-oiled turnout machine. Even Democrats outside of Chicago are confident that the Obama field operation will be gangbusters, thanks in large part to Hildebrand’s efforts over the past year.

The National Democrats wanted to know: why is the campaign focusing on Sarah Palin? Why does Obama seem defensive?

They were told not to panic.

Iowa’s delegates …

… have not been selected yet. Sure, everyone thought those delegates were chosen and allotted on January 3. “Not so fast,” says the actual process.

 From the link:

On caucus night it was estimated that Obama’s 38% of the caucus vote would net him 16 delegates, Clinton’s 29% would net her 15, and Edwards would receive 14 from his 30% caucus support. And these numbers are already included in the counts that currently show Clinton and Obama separated by fewer than 100 delegates.

But here’s the rub. Iowa Democrats will not actually elect any national delegates until our Congressional District Conventions on April 26. At that time 29 of the delegates will be elected, with the remaining 16 elected at the State Convention in June. And those delegates will be elected in proportion to the support each candidate receives at those conventions. How will we know how much support they have? That’s where the county conventions come in.

County Convention Delegates elected at the caucus were elected in support of a candidate (or uncommitted). At the county convention, just like at the caucuses, there will be a “re-alignment” period, where delegates can change their allegiance. Once that process is done, we will count the supporters, and any candidate with less than 15% support at the county convention will be declared non-viable, with those delegates needing to move to a different candidate. When the alignment is over, the viable candidate groups will elect their share of district and state convention delegates.

(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)

Edwards to endorse Clinton?

Is John Edwards considering endorsing Clinton?

I don’t see him submarining his clout at this point by picking the wrong candidate. My guess is this is merely an attention gathering move. In the linked piece he works pretty hard at praising both candidates.

And then there were two

In something of a surprise John Edwards is dropping out of the Democratic presidential nomination race.

He pulled only 14% of the vote in the meaningless Florida primary yesterday (meaningless because the state was stripped of its delegates for holding the primary too early) and hasn’t really threatened Obama or Clinton.  Even though he failed to win any primaries, he has garnered delegates — 26 compared to Clinton’s 48 and Obama’s 63 (according to CNN.com).

It will be interesting to see what his next move will be and who, if anyone, he throws his support behind. It’s been widely speculated which of the two front-running candidates would most benefit if Edwards left the race. Looks like we’ll all find out on Tsunami Tuesday next week.