aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

The Big Mo’

I find it ironic that I will be voting Hillary here, where Obama is expected to win handily; while most every friend I have in New York will be voting Obama, where Hillary is expected to win handily.

Obama’s got momentum that just won’t stop. I’ve said repeatedly that I think he will be our candidate. Yesterday Kos cautioned:

If [Hillary] can’t put this thing away tomorrow, and it’s hard to see how she could absent an unlikely rout, her fundraising will continue to suffer vis-a-vis Obama, and that would prove deadly in a protracted campaign. Her best ally at this point is the ridiculous expectations Obama supporters have for tomorrow. Clinton is going to win the day. The key is to limit her margin of victory and keep it close enough for Obama to catch up later in the month and into March and April. But if Obama supporters build themselves up to the point they actually think they can win tomorrow (by citing bogus polls by Zogby, for example, and cherry picking the best of the other polls), then anything but a victory will be a demoralizing letdown.

This isn’t about lowering expectations. It’s about the reality of the situation. Obama has been slowly building up, and has had to overcome huge advantages enjoyed by the Clintons. It’s about the calendar (see below [link]), and how it plays to Obama’s strengths later in the month. There’s no need to bet everything on tomorrow. It’s all about how well he loses. The narrower the loss, the bigger his actual victory.

Not that my cautions will have much of an effect. Irrational exuberance is running rampant, just like before New Hampshire. You’d think people would learn their lessons…