A great analysis of the race on The Field

[Mass]

http://208.122.14.138/thefield/?p=838

What Clinton Did Right, What Obama Did Wrong

In the context of that it’s the delegate count that matters and – as we await the fleshing out of the results from the Texas caucuses – last night was at best, for Clinton, a draw in the battle for Democratic National Convention delegates, and may not even be that for her once all is counted…

As the Great Mentioners – Halperin and Fournier, among them – are today emphasizing the very points we made yesterday (that it’s the delegate count, stupid!), the Clinton campaign deserves a lot of credit for what it did right, achieving, at least, a ticket out of March 4 to remain in the contest.

1. The Clinton campaign worked rural areas of Ohio and Texas much harder than the Obama campaign. Bill Clinton worked from Texarkana to Pennsyltucky in smaller media markets and gained lots of local free media and decent sized crowds. And I’ll repeat: crowds do matter, even more so in regions that rarely see them in politics. Since Obama doesn’t have a surrogate of equal drawing power, these are areas that Obama had to go to himself, but with few exceptions, he did not. That was a reversal of his winning strategies in Iowa, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, states that were midsized enough to allow more blanket coverage. For Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary, Obama has to get back to what worked in those places; do a bus tour – or maybe a Lawton Chiles inspired walk across the state in Springtime - in that vast rural spread between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and let his surrogates, including Michelle, shoulder the greater burden in the cities. You know that Bill will be in those places. Only the physical presence of Obama himself can trump that.

[book_worm]

1. I think we can learn from this. Remember it's Obama who showed in Iowa and NV

and other places that he could win in smaller towns and rural areas. We gotta get back to that. He shouldn't just plan big rallies in the big cities.

[ginnyinWI]

3. Wisconsin, too

He appeared in at least six smaller communities that I know of, and maybe more, then topped it off with Milwaukee. And he won here by 17 points.

[Luftmensch067]

2. Excellent points! n/t