The Las Vegas Sun seems to be the only traditional media outlet noting the key to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s popular vote win in Nevada:
If you want to know how Sen. Hillary Clinton won a convincing victory in Saturday’s Nevada caucus, look back to a meeting Dec. 15 at William E. Orr Middle School in Las Vegas.
There, Robby Mook, Clinton’s state director, told 600 of the campaign’s most committed volunteers that he wanted to enlist many more supporters to caucus for the candidate — more than twice what he asked for in August.
It was a startling move coming nearly a year into the Nevada campaign — and just five weeks before the caucus. It also was a strategic risk because it would divert resources.
Mook’s colleagues in Clinton’s Iowa campaign paid no attention to his move. Turns out, they should have.
***
Aside from heavy turnout, the Clinton camp made another smart strategic move that was aided and abetted by a strategic blunder: Although the Clinton team won’t admit it publicly, the campaign had been working Culinary Union members hard and organizing them for the past year. The effort recognized that because the union was waiting so long to make an endorsement decision (it didn’t come until 10 days ago), the campaign could peel off members and get them committed and working while the union dithered. The result was a surprising victory at seven of the nine special Strip caucus sites.
The article also cites Clinton’s aggressive courting of the Hispanic vote, as noted here on Jan 13. Organization was key to Clinton’s effort, just as it was in New Hampshire, just as it will be on Super-Duper Tuesday. The establishment media just seems bent on ignoring it most of the time.
Not that the blogosphere does much better. As I write this, TalkLeft’s Jeralyn Merritt is one of the few to pick up on the Sun story, but she ultimately fits it into the “experience vs. change” theme to which the establishment media seems committed.ÂÂ
In Nevada, most Democratic caucus-goers selected experience over Hope because Clinton’s machine turned out tens of thousands of new caucus-goers who were going to make that choice.
Update: At OpenLeft, Zak Exley — who spent time in Nevada – has even more detail on the Clinton camp’s organizational effort, with comments on what it may mean for the general election. I have previously noted that the GOP wins in 2000, 2002 and 2004 hinged in no small part on a superior GOTV effort — a trend that reversed in 2006 and shows little sign of favoring the GOP this year to date.
Robby Mook. Someone just make it stop.
You are missing the real story in Nevada.
Ron Paul took second in the Republican Primaries in Nevada.
*waits for the Ronnites to point and fail their arms in a distorted semblance of a victory dance while bemoaning the lack of media coverage their savior is garnering*
I still don’t understand why the popularity contest is being talked about when the real power of the primaries, the delegates, are at stake. Clinton may have won the voting percentage battle, but Obama quietly won 13 out of 25 delegates. Hillary came closer in Iowa than people realize because she lost to Obama by only one delegate (and actually tied or passed Edwards in that state, depending on what delegate count one looks at).
As far as Ron Paul is concerned. He only gained four delegates in Nevada. He’s falling further and further behind. The real winners on Saturday were Romney and McCain, since they picked up a good chunk of the delegates.
No. Check Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic. (see marcambinder.theatlantic.com — last time I tried to put a link in here I really messed it up — It’s “Obama Manger Accuses Clinton . . .”). Hillary only won because she *cheated* (and everyone knows Democrats, and especially Clintons, don’t play dirty politics).
The Obama crowd is really steamed. The comments are a hoot.
Because admitting the delegates are more important is like admitting electoral votes are more important.
…may require admitting how heavily rigged in Hillary’s favor the D’s delegating system is, how she doesn’t even need 50% of the horserace delegates to win the nomination handily, and how that makes her fuck-the-blacks strategy not only workable, but inevitable.
Unspeakable, too.
Sorry, guys, but the distribution of delegates in NV is far from decided. All that was done yesterday was to elect sets of delegates for the county conventions (who are not bound to any candidate), who elect another set of delegates for the state conventions, who finally elect the delegates to the national conventions. This multi-layered process allows for a lot to happen, including horse-trading and various forms of chicanery.
Mike C,
As you know, I mentioned the uncertainty yesterday. However, I do not think that uncertainty negates the point about the Democrats’ attitudes about the notion that Obama could have won more than HRC, while losing the popular vote.
That is true, Karl.
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