Campaign Manager David Plouffe made it clear that March 4th will be key in indicating who the next Democratic nominee for president will be — and the onus is on Hillary Clinton.

“This is the last big window of opportunity for them to erase what is a very, very serious delegate deficit, and we believe that we’re headed to close races in these states,” Plouffe said. The problem for Clinton, he says, is that she must win Texas and Ohio, and win big to erase that delegate deficit.

The Clinton campaign may not be expecting to catch up in terms of pledged delegates, but if they keep momentum alive by winning states (i.e. the popular vote), she would still be viable. Plouffe isn’t buying that argument, stressing this race is, has, and will be about the almighty pledged delegates. “They keep moving the goalposts, but at some point you run out of field and they have to start winning delegates and winning them quickly,” he said.

“The fact of the matter is there is the cold-hearted reality of the math and there’s 370 delegates at stake tomorrow……….if we can come out of Tuesday night’s contests with a pledged delegate lead still in our favor and if we’re able to maintain or even build on it, I think that’s going to be a major event in the nomination swing.”

Obama Campaign Manager, David Plouffe estimates his candidate has a 136 pledged delegate lead after yesterday’s Potomac Primary wins. The Obama campaign has now won 21 contests (including 12 primaries) and, according to the campaign, has a 700,000 vote lead in terms of popular votes cast. “We couldn’t be in a stronger position right now, and the last really five days, we believe, will be looked at back at as a very decisive period in the nomination contest,” he declared. “We think it really put us on the path to the nomination.”

On a conference call with reporters, Plouffe said his candidate has the advantage. “We believe it’s next to impossible for Senator Clinton to close that pledged delegate count. The only way she could do it is winning most of the rest of the contests by 25 - 30 points. And we see not a single contest on the calendar left where we’d expect her to win by those kind of margins.” He later explained that they expect to benefit from a more relaxed primary schedule because “we believe anytime Senator Obama is able to spend time with voters in states, we have profited from that.”

The only way Senator Clinton could overcome this gap, Plouffe said, is if she wins both Texas and Ohio by “blowout” proportions - meaning a 20 point margin or greater as to win a large proportion of the delegates at stake. But Team Obama doesn’t expect that to happen - in fact, they plan on amassing more delegates themselves in both states. “At this point, even the most creative math, really does not get her ever back even in terms of pledged delegates,” Plouffe said, saying it would be “highly unlikely” that their pledged delegate lead will be eroded.

So does this mean victory or will superdelegates decide the Party’s nominee? “We believed all along that the pledged delegate leader will be the Democratic nominee of the party,” Plouffe stated. “I think there’s a growing chorus of concern out there that people do not think that superdelegates should overturn the result of the contests, so we have closed the gap with superdelegates, we’re continuing to try and attract support and we’ll continue to do that. But I think at the end of the day, if we head into June and we’ve won more states, more importantly we have a pledged delegate lead, you know at the end of the day, I think it’s much more likely than not that the superdelegates ratify that outcome,” Plouffe said.

The Obama campaign just sent out a pair of emails that Senator Obama won a “clear majority of Super Tuesday states” at 13, and that their candidate has won more delegates than Clinton in today’s 22 contests. That is why their victory is “crystal clear” as Senior Advisor told a gaggle of reporters following Obama’s Super Tuesday speech.

Listen to Axelrod on Clinton’s prediction weeks ago that the nomination would be sewn up tonight, on what the American people should take away from today’s results, and on their “victory.”

done

On a conference call with reporters, Campaign Manager David Plouffe estimates that so far Obama is up 606 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 534 (2,025 are needed to secure the nomination).

“This is a very strong night for us,” Plouffe said. “The fact that we may come out of here with a draw or maybe even a little bit better than that, certainly exceeds our high threshold today, any threshold we set for ourselves and we think it sets us up really well for the next seven days.”

“We may end up winning more delegates, and again, there are still some big states to come in,” he said. California, AZ, CO, and NM have yet to report and Plouffe anticipates it will be close. “So again, a long road to travel here.”

At 11:20pm (CST), Press Secretary Bill Burton sent out the following email to reporters:

“With California not yet counted, we currently lead Clinton by 43 pledged delegates — Obama: 677 – Clinton: 634.  We came into tonight with 63 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 48 pledged delegates.”

An email from Spokesman Bill Burton to reporters:

From: dailyreporters-bounces@XXXXX.XXX on behalf of Bill Burton
Sent: Tue 1/29/2008 8:01 PM
To: Bill Burton
Subject: Breaking….

Obama and Clinton tie for delegates in Florida.  0 for Obama, 0 for Clinton.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bill Burton

Press Secretary

Obama for America

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.”

The Obama is set to hold a conference call in the next few minutes to discuss what it sees as at least a partial victory here in Nevada - they are claiming that while Hillary won 12 delegates, Senator Obama won 13. In an email advising the conference call, the campaign quotes Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson from a 1/16/08 Washington Post story, during which Wolfson said, “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.”

Here is the statement sent by the Obama campaign to reporters on the Nevada caucus.

—-

Statement from Barack Obama:

“We’re proud of the campaign we ran in Nevada. We came from over twenty-five points behind to win more national convention delegates than Hillary Clinton because we performed well all across the state, including rural areas where Democrats have traditionally struggled. The reason is because tens of thousands of Nevadans came out to say that they’re tired of business-as-usual in Washington and ready for a President who can bring this country together, take on the lobbyists and special interests, and end the politics of saying and doing whatever it takes to win an election. It is the kind of politics that feeds our cynicism and distracts us from taking on the real challenges facing America – an economy that’s left working families struggling, a broken health care system, and a war in Iraq that must end.

“We ran an honest, uplifting campaign in Nevada that focused on the real problems Americans are facing, a campaign that appealed to people’s hopes instead of their fears. That’s the campaign we’ll take to South Carolina and across America in the weeks to come, and that’s how we will truly bring about the change this country is hungry for.”

Statement from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe

“We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign’s efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week’s worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself.

“We will investigate all of these thoroughly and would encourage anyone who had concern about actions at the caucus sites to call (866) 675-2008.”