SIOUX CITY, Iowa — All but assured of a respectable showing – if not
outright victories – in the first two early-voting states, Bernie
Sanders’ top campaign aides are gaming out a protracted delegate fight
with Hillary Clinton that borrows from the Obama playbook.
The Sanders campaign is finalizing plans for its alternative route to
the Democratic nomination, a classic insurgent strategy that is heavily
reliant on the limited number of states holding caucuses.
The idea is to take advantage of the caucus format, which tends to
reward campaigns with the most dedicated partisans. The caucuses play to
Sanders’ strength in another important way – they are largely held in
states that are heavily white, which helps Sanders neutralize Clinton’s
edge with minority voters.
With a dozen such contests coming before the end of March – and
Clinton expected to perform well on March 1, the first big multi-state
primary day -- the caucuses are emerging as an integral part of Sanders’
long-shot plan.
“Caucuses are very good for Bernie Sanders,” explained chief Sanders
strategist Tad Devine, likening the 2016 strategy to the one he deployed
as Mike Dukakis’ field director in 1988. “Caucuses tend to be in the
much-lower turnout universe, and having people who intensely support you
in events like that makes a huge difference. You saw that with
President Obama in 2008, and you’re going to see it with Bernie
Sanders."
For the Clinton camp, it’s a sensitive issue. They dispute the idea
that Sanders will be able to pull it off, offering repeated assurances
that the campaign learned from its mistakes in 2008, when Clinton fell
to a more organized Obama in caucuses all over the country as he slowly
amassed enough delegates to win.
“In the 2008 campaign, Secretary Clinton’s campaign was late to get
staff out to those states and really got blown out by the Obama
campaign,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told MNSBC on Friday.
“We’re just not [going to] let that happen this time."
The first staffers the Clinton team hired outside of the four early
states, for example, were in Minnesota and Colorado — the two states
that hold caucuses on March 1. The Brooklyn-based operation has also
unveiled ‘leadership councils’ of top elected officials in each state
with a caucus before March 15.
Both candidates have also been sure to visit those strategically
important states: Sanders will jump north from Iowa Tuesday, just days
before the first-in-the-nation caucus, for a pair of events in Duluth
and St. Paul.
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