A couple weeks ago, I got some pushback for writing the following about Hillary Clinton's South Carolina strategy:
A wise friend of mine told me today her sense was that the Clinton campaign seems to already have written off South Carolina and is seeking to lessen the significance of an Obama win there by portraying it as a foregone conclusion because of his appeal among black voters.
In other words, the process of minimizing the significance of a Barack Obama win by sort of portraying it as inevitable was already underway; the fact that she's been stumping outside of the state since Monday's debate, leaving Bill and Chelsea behind to do the honors, would certainly appear to have borne this prediction out. As former South Carolina governor Jim Hodges (who supports Barack Obama) put it, this tactic is "an insurance policy against failure" (h/t Chris Cilizza) and if the Public Policy Polling memo that accompanied their poll released yesterday showing Obama with a 16 point lead is any indication, this management of expectations appears to be working.
"Barack Obama is the run away favorite to win South Carolina," said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. "Especially as it seems Hillary Clinton will shift her focus to the Super Tuesday primaries, anything other than a double digit victory for him in South Carolina would be a surprise at this point."
But what this walk the line between campaigning there and seeming not to fails to take into account is the apparent need to do some post-debate damage control. Today, the first of a series of Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby tracking polls was released whose results not only show Clinton trailing Obama by 18 points, but also appear to indicate a loss of support for Obama and Clinton and a surge for John Edwards on the one post-debate polling day. From John Zogby's analysis:
"Obama holds a 43% to 25% lead over Clinton, with Edwards at 15%. But that does not tell the whole story here."Yesterday alone, Obama led with 39% with Clinton 22% and Edwards at 18%. One day does not make a trend, but the potential is there showing that Edwards may have scored some points in the Monday CNN debate and in his campaigning. Over the three days of polling, he is clearly splitting the white vote with Clinton."
Edwards within 4 points of Clinton in South Carolina? Didn't see that coming. Now, it should be noted that these numbers are the result of just one out of the three days polled and so the sample size is quite small (and MOE quite large), but the trend certainly indicates a clear drop in support for Obama and Clinton and a bump for Edwards, a sign that Edwards gained the most from Monday's debate (and the others' squabbling may have turned voters off.) The fact that Edwards is there on the ground while Clinton is not certainly gives him an opportunity to capitalize on what may very well be a surge in his direction (although Clinton is due back in South Carolina tomorrow.)
One important caveat is that Zogby does point out that the polling over the three days indicates a very fluid race but if tomorrow's poll, reflecting two post-debate polling days and just one pre-debate, continues to show Edwards gaining on Clinton, she may end up wishing she'd stayed in South Carolina this week after all.
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