Strategy Was Based On Winning Delegates, Not Battlegrounds

With Clinton's name recognition and traditional strengths obvious in big states, such as California, New York and New Jersey, Hildebrand, Carson and Berman decided it would be more effective to deploy one volunteer to Idaho or Delaware than to send that same volunteer to Los Angeles or Yonkers, N.Y.

In short, Team Obama would make a virtue of necessity.

"It's very hard to gain a big advantage in small states," a senior Clinton staffer asserted shortly before the Super Tuesday contests, which were supposed to seal Clinton's victory.

He was wrong. The small states did matter. Between Idaho, Nebraska, Vermont, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and Alaska, Obama would amass 118 delegates to Clinton's 57.

Even early in the contest, the Obama delegate strategy was showing signs of success. But while Clinton's win in New Hampshire on Jan. 8 revived her candidacy, the victory was so narrow that she wound up with the same number of pledged delegates -- nine -- as Obama. In Nevada 11 days later, Clinton won the caucuses by a six-point spread, but Obama won more delegates, 13 to her 12, because his support was more evenly distributed around the state.

When the Obama campaign announced its delegate count within hours after the Nevada caucuses ended, the Clinton campaign, state party officials and local reporters quickly shot down the calculation as a loser's wishful thinking. Berman explained on a campaign conference call how the math added up: Obama had prevailed in districts with an odd number of delegates, so he was awarded the extra delegate, whereas Clinton's strongest regions were districts with even numbers of delegates, and Obama had kept the margin close enough to result in an even split.

"We don't view Nevada as a loss," Axelrod told skeptical reporters. "We'll keep letting them spin the victories and taking their delegates."

The big challenge was Feb. 5, when the 22 states would hold Democratic caucuses and primaries, with 1,681 pledged delegates at stake. The Obama campaign's worst-case scenario showed Clinton finishing with a net gain of about 100 delegates. The best-case scenario showed Obama fighting her to a draw.

The campaign stuck to its plan even as Obama started to creep up in the California polls. An upset in California would probably end the contest. But Plouffe, Hildebrand and others concluded that it was too big a gamble -- and that Obama could win as many delegates by campaigning in smaller states.

Among the states where Obama strategists worked virtually unchallenged by Clinton were Kansas, Idaho, Utah and Alaska, where Obama staffers used the Internet to reach voters in a district known as the Arctic Circle.

The campaign sent staffers to Kansas three months before Clinton organizers arrived. By Super Tuesday, Obama's staff outnumbered Clinton's 18 to 3. "They have a plan," Dan Watkins, a Lawrence lawyer, former Vista volunteer and Camp Obama graduate, marveled in late January. "They are empowering people to draw out what they can do."

Alan Jones, a real estate broker in Loveland, Colo., had created an Obama Meetup group in nearby Fort Collins a full year before. He was amazed when Obama campaign staffers reached out to him and other volunteers, instructing them to assign precinct captains in their communities and giving them lists of voters to call, along with a script to use. By early January, the campaign had opened offices statewide, including one in Fort Collins, outfitted with volunteers and computers from the Iowa operations.