Black Box Report

With the Democratic race in Texas and Ohio tightening by the day, for Hillary Clinton (to quote Elvis), it's now or never, and tomorrow can't come fast enough:

Clinton needs to get a solid win in one of these states (many analysts say both of the states) to announce that she’s back in a comeback. The history of these primaries so far indicate they’re filled with surprises for pundits and embarrassing days for pollsters. But from these numbers, at least, there could be close elections in each states — with the outcome depending on the get-out-the-vote “ground war” on election day.

And while Clinton has chosen to go the high-profile route in the final days before her March 4 line in the sand, appearing Saturday Night Live this weekend and the Daily Show tonight, the Obama campaign has taken a more grassroots approach, utilizing internet search engines and online advertising to, as they put it, grow the electorate:

Traditionally, at this point in a campaign, the get-out-the-vote effort is aimed only at already confirmed supporters…Winning campaigns find new voters, too. And, the Obama campaign keeps finding new voters. That's what adds to the numbers. It really is a new generation campaign.

So that's where "Obamacans" come from. I thought it was the stork.

Now, faced with a neck and neck race where there was none two weeks ago, the high-priced consultants from Clinton's old generation campaign have begun saying because Obama outspent Clinton in tomorrow's contests, it's trouble for his campaign if he doesn't win them all - decisively:

So if the candidate who's leading in delegates, national polls, fundraising, and states won can't sweep the March 4 primaries, then Clinton is the real winner? Maybe they should just go back to arguing that Texas doesn't count.

And once you start lowering expectations, it's not long before the finger-pointing begins:

Hillary Clinton hasn't even conceded defeat for the Democratic nomination, but top staffers are already publicly blaming each other for what has gone wrong in the campaign. And it seems to be degenerating into two camps: Chief pollster Mark Penn vs. everyone else.

If Hillary runs the table from here on out, these guys will look like geniuses (they clearly haven't been, but history is written by the victors). If not, well, success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.