New Hampshire Not Last Comeback Story of This Election

My congratulations to Senator Hillary Clinton on her victory in New Hampshire today. As she, Barack Obama, and John Edwards have made clear, this is going to be a vigorous campaign to the finish.

Thanks to a record turn-out in Iowa of 239,000 for the Democratic Caucuses in Iowa, including 96,000 voters under 45, Barack Obama captured 38% of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 29.5%. That's a margin of 20,315 voters.

In New Hampshire, a projected 290,000 Democratic Ballots are expected, but there, Clinton enjoys a much narrower lead of 39%-36%, or roughly 8,100 votes.

Worst case scenario, Obama splits the first two games of pre-season, but leads the popular vote by over 10,000.

A Repeat of 2000?

Could Obama win the popular vote and lose the nomination?

The short answer seems to be yes.

That's because many state parties also have many so-called "super-delegates". These super-delegates are not elected directly, but are often members on the Democratic National Committee, State Democratic Party, or state officeholders. In many cases, these "super-delegates" can commit to any candidate they wish.

Thanks to "super-delegates", Hillary Clinton currently leads the race to the convention 159 to Obama's 53 and Edwards' 34. Candidates must collect a simple majority, or 2025 delegates to get the party's nomination. Obama's total includes all 15 of Illinois' super-delegates, but Clinton has 39 of NY's 40 super-delegates, all of Arkansas, most of California, most of NY, etc.

More later this week on what I think Barack Obama needs to do to recapture the tempo of this race. But here are some thoughts.

The Obama campaign needs to re-assert itself among key voting blocks, put all questions about lack of substance behind him, and go on the offensive against Hillary Clinton and the Clinton record.

I think the key voting blocks are women, which make a significant part of the electorate up, and blue collar voters.

If Clinton continues to pick up margins among women voters like she did in New Hampshire, Obama can't catch up. And while John Edwards vows to press on, he's bound to lose part of his base. Obama can't take for granted that those voters will come to him. He's got to appeal to them and ask for their vote.

Contrary to myth, Obama already has substantive plans, but he never seems to talk about them, atleast while the t.v. cameras are rolling. He needs to start by focusing on his plans to re-invent our economy.

I would start by talking about his plans to reform NAFTA, which play very well to Edwards' base, and to Democrats in general who are afraid of losing jobs overseas. He needs to make it clear that these aren't just factory jobs, but also white-collar jobs and high-tech jobs that are leaving america.

And he needs to remind people over-and-over again how the Clinton's sold NAFTA to the American people.

This naturally leads into education, as another way to improve our ability to compete in the world, which should be a slam-dunk for Obama. He has two school-age children and teaches part-time atone of the best universities in the country. He can tout his support for expanding early childhood learning in Illinois.

Let's not forget his bipartisan efforts to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit either.

Finally, health care. Obama already has a plan out there, but the perception is that his is somehow weaker. Obama should remind folks that Hillary Clinton already had eight years to expand health care coverage and failed. In fact, there were 2.6 million more uninsured Americans when the Clinton's left office than when they took it. What good is giving Hillary four more years going to do? And how can we, as a party and a nation, keep selecting the same leaders over and over again to do the same things and expect the same result?

That ought to put Clinton on the defensive through Feb. 5th.

That ought to help in Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and New Jersey, as well as Massachusetts.