Trailhead: A campaign blog.

The Lead Shrinks [Update: And Widens Again!]

NASHUA -- "Hillary Clinton's lead has shrunk to four points now," says Keith Olbermann's voice, booming from the jumbotron at the Nashua South High School where Obama is holding his election night rally. Cheers go up, seeing as last time we checked, she was five points ahead.

The gym here is packed to capacity. Beyond capacity. Fire hazard is an understatement. To get in, I had to wait till the door guard had her back turned. Everyone's watching the results come in on the big screen. It's like a basketball game, but the action is in a thousand places instead of one.

UPDATE 9:16 p.m.: Three percent! Every time the MSNBC stats graphic flashes, there's a burst of glee. You can hear McCain fans chanting "USA! USA!" during his acceptance speech over the TV. The crowd here greets the challenge with a round of "Fired up! Ready to go!"

UPDATE 9:29 p.m.: Two percent. Damn. "Younger people vote later," a guy here tells me. They have jobs; Hillary-loving retirees don't. That could explain the late-in-the-game gap shrinkage.

UPDATE 10:02 p.m.: So much for that. More than 50 percent of the vote is in and Clinton's still ahead. I've been biting my nails. And I don't bite my nails.

Eff You, Iowa!

Even if Barack Obama loses Iowa, he could still win the nomination. Seriously.

The conventional wisdom is that if Clinton wins Iowa, Obama's shot at the presidency is shot. While that's certainly possible—and probably probable—pundits seem to be forgetting that momentum isn't everything. 

There's a very real chance Obama could win New Hampshire even if he loses Iowa by a reasonable amount (e.g., less than five percentage points). Obama is essentially tied with Clinton in New Hampshire in polling averages, and John Edwards is less of a factor in the competition for the change vote. More telling, perhaps, is that only 6 percent of New Hampshire Democrats say their own vote will be swayed by the Iowa outcome. (Of course, who would cop to that?) Plus, New Hampshire has picked a different winner than Iowa in the Democratic primary three of the past five contested cycles (although not in the past two).

So, what if New Hampshire asserts itself and plays contrarian to Iowa's conventional wisdom? In a year when it was en vogue to hate on New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary, it's reasonable to think that residents will give the finger to the media, Iowa, and the rest of the country. Live-free-or-die pride is on the line. 

One question has percolated in the background all cycle: Are voters waiting for somebody else to tell them it's OK to vote for the black guy with little experience but a big idea? An Obama win in the Granite State would start revealing the answer.

If Obama defeated Clinton in her former firewall state, all of the Clinton inevitability stories will be washed away by pro-Obama headlines. Clinton would probably win Nevada regardless (unless the culinary union backs Obama), which brings us to Jan. 26 in South Carolina. There, Obama's campaign thinks the black population will come out to vote as long as one of the first two states confirms Obama as a viable candidate.

Now, it's still more likely for Clinton to emerge the victor from most of the four meaningful early primaries. But if she and Obama split them, momentum won't be as large a factor. Momentum, after all, is only useful for convincing voters that votes won't be wasted. Anyone who wins two out of the first four states has proven viability, if not electability. 

Straight Talk Strategy

John McCain’s camp plays Nostradamus in a campaign strategy PowerPoint that they released on their Web site yesterday, and it’s an insightful peek into the psyche of the once-beleaguered campaign.

Essentially, McCain thinks he’ll win New Hampshire and momentum will carry him from there. Some highlights of the strategy—with some caveats attached:

• McCain is a modern-day Reagan: His campaign thinks he is the only conservative Republican who can keep the Reagan coalition together. Giuliani is too far left and Romnabee hangs too close to the religious right. Problem: That may be true, but poll numbers suggest the religious right is the cool kid in Iowa and South Carolina.
• McCain = Electability: Poll numbers suggest he is the strongest Republican to face off against Hillary Clinton. Problem: What about Giuliani? He has polled well nationally for a reason, and attracts more moderate and independent voters than McCain. Plus, what if the Democrats don’t nominate Hillary?
• New Hampshire, New Hampshire: After Romney loses Iowa, McCain thinks New Hampshire residents will vote for him like they did in 2000. This time, he has Curt Schilling to get him over the top. Problem: With or without an Iowa win, Romney is still from neighboring Massachusetts. That may buy him some percentage points.
• Florida is key: Who cares that more than 20 states are voting on Feb. 5? McCain thinks that Florida will vote for whomever has the most momentum on Jan. 29, which will only help boost his momentum going into Feb. 5. Problem: What if a bunch of different candidates take the first three or four states leading up to Florida? Huckabee wins Iowa, Romney wins New Hampshire, Giuliani wins South Carolina, and McCain wins Michigan. In that case, no candidate is likely to bust through Giuliani’s firewall in Florida.

McCain can certainly win the nomination, but his campaign is banking on a complicated chain reaction to produce a victory. If a McCain win in New Hampshire doesn't materialize, then he doesn't have a catalyst. Without a catalyst, McCain's political equation won't produce a nomination.

Pleading the Fifth

Rudy Giuliani got the memo about the importance of early primary states. He's just choosing to ignore it. 

While Iowa and New Hampshire are crucial states for most Republican candidates, Rudy Giuliani thinks of them more as a nuisance. Giuliani's campaign told reporters today that they think Giuliani can lose the first three contests in the cycle and still win the nomination. They essentially conceded defeat in Iowa and New Hampshire to Mitt Romney, who has double-digit leads in the polls and has poured millions into radio and television advertising.

Instead of the traditional strategy, Giuliani is hoping that Feb. 5 is a second Christmas, one where he'll be given hundreds of delegates wrapped inside a Romney concession speech. According to his campaign manager and strategy director, Giuliani can come away with delegates from January primaries in Florida and Michigan, where he leads in polls. Then on Feb. 5, the campaign figures, Giuliani's popularity in the New York region will guarantee him at least the 200 delegates from Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, plus many from the other 16 states that hold contests on "Tsunami Tuesday." 

This strategy borders on hubris, but it also wisely lowers the bar. If the press starts railing on Giuliani for poor showings in the first two contests he can just say, "I told you so." But can a national front-runner really set expectations that low and expect to stay out front? If Giuliani finishes fourth in Iowa to Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and maybe even Ron Paul (gasp!), could his candidacy still be taken seriously? What if Romney, Paul, and McCain trump him again in New Hampshire? As a Connecticut native, I can tell you Giuliani isn't in for a soft landing on the icy streets of the Nutmeg State (where he called his lead "momentum-proof"). 

For Giuliani, his strategy is necessitated by disappointing polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. And to be fair, Giuliani has a real shot at winning South Carolina, where he's locked in a race for first with Fred Thompson and a surging Romney. But his explicit focus beyond Iowa and New Hampshire won't help his supporters in those states court new converts. Proof that Giuliani is thinking long term: He spends this week in Missouri, Florida, the Dakotas, and Washington, D.C. Iowa and New Hampshire aren't even on the schedule.

BREAKING: Fred Thompson Visits New Hampshire

That shouldn’t be news. But it is, seeing as it was only his second time there.

Fred Thompson is sticking with his “Southern Strategy,” the Wall Street Journal reports today. In other words, he’s largely bypassing Iowa and New Hampshire in favor of early southern states like South Carolina and Florida instead of : 

It's not a conventional presidential strategy to play down Iowa and New Hampshire. Candidates who have tried skipping them generally haven't fared well. And Mr. Thompson said during his visit yesterday that he's planning on spending enough time and money in New Hampshire to at least make a respectable showing before the vote heads South.

Is he serious? It’s not just that Iowa and New Hampshire have been important in the past. They’ve been essential. In the last 28 years, the only presidential candidate to win his party’s nomination without winning one of those two states has been Bill Clinton. And, to borrow a put-down, Fred Thompson is no Bill Clinton. Sure, he’s faring better in South Carolina and Florida—second place behind Giuliani. But even Giuliani knows that’s not enough.

Giuliani, who initially planned to focus on the February 5 “Tsunami Tuesday,” has decided to go all in in the Granite State. You don’t want to risk going into Feb. 5 having already lost a handful of states—Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan being the riskiest. He has recently seen a jump in the polls there—although Romney still leads—and he plans to start airing TV ads as well. Without a victory, or at least a respectable showing, in NH, he would have trouble stopping Romney’s momentum.

Thompson has yet to face this fact. It’s one thing to recognize your limits in the early states. It’s another to pretend they don’t exist.