The Obama campaign put on a hastily arranged conference call today, hosted by campaign manager David Plouffe and director of delegate selection, Jeff Berman, to claim victory on Nevada’s delegate count.
Plouffe said Senator Obama chipped away at Senator Clinton’s huge lead and closed strong to come within just several percentage points of winning the caucus. Instead, they settled for a win in the all-important delegate count - Nevada has 25 delegates who vote for a nominee at the convention. After multiple news outlets called the race for Clinton, the Associated Press reported that Senator Clinton won 13 of those delegates while Obama took 12.
Not according to team Obama. It was, in fact, the opposite, according to their math. They explained that Obama won the district with odd numbers of delegates while where Hillary won, the numbers of delegates were even, so the delegates were split evenly. The campaign explained that the state Democratic Party gave incomplete information to the news outlet. An Associated Press reporter on the call piped up during the question and answer period of the call to say the campaign “might be right.”
Plouffe stated that the campaign will have “20 lifetimes” between now and the end of February and ” it does seem like we are headed for a long and protracted fight here.” That campaign, he said, will increasingly turn into a contest for delegates. To rub it in a bit, the campaign announced their conference call today with a quote from Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson, who spoke to the Washington Post three days ago. “This is a race for delegates. It is not a battle for individual states. As David knows, we are well past the time when any state will have a disproportionate influence on the nominating process.” The “David” Wolfson was referring to, of course, was Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.
The Nevada State Democratic Party put out a statement of their own. “No national convention delegates were awarded. The calculations of national convention delegates being circulated are based upon an assumption that delegate preferences will remain the same between now and April 2008. We look forward to our county and state conventions where we will choose the delegates for the nominee that Nevadans support.”
Meanwhile, the Associated Press updated their story, which was forwarded to reporters by the Obama campaign. The first line: “Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama split the spoils in the Nevada caucuses Saturday night, a race marred by late charges of dirty politics.”
