SIZEMORE SIZES UP OBAMA’S FIELD PLAN
Put aside message and money, and one realizes that Barack Obama won this thing because his strategists and field team, led by David Plouffe and aided considerably the Hildebrand-Tewes consulting team and a dose of targeting genius from Strategic Telemetry’s Ken Strasma, created a strategy designed to maximize the pledged delegates won based on Obama’s support in each state.
The best analytical distillation I have seen of this—and, particularly, of how Obama crushed Hillary Clinton in the caucus states while using the DNC’s proportionality rules to minimize his delegate losses in primary states he lost while maximizing them in the primary states he won—is a piece published yesterday called "How Obama Did It" by somebody named Justin Sizemore, writing for University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato’s “Crystal Ball ‘08” site.
It’s a great read--and it has super tables too, for the numbers geeks, like me, who dig that sort of thang.
--Tom Schaller
Feeds: 



COMMENTS (2)
Size matters, he he.
Posted by: jokster | June 5, 2008 12:04 PM
One thing the linked piece reinforces: this race was effectively over after March 4, when Hillary's wins in TX/OH/RI didn't really do much to Obama's delegate lead.
At that point, it was pretty obvious that (a) Obama would in all likelihood be able to minimize a Clinton win in PA in the same manner, and (b) after PA, the opportunities to gain ground would be sparse.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | June 5, 2008 1:15 PM