Obama to Iowans: If I'm Not Your First Choice, Make Me Your Second

CBS News ^ | 12/31/07 | Maria Gavrilovic

[melt]

BOONE, IOWA -- In the days leading to the Iowa caucuses, Barack Obama is focusing on undecided voters by stressing his record on special interests and telling voters that he can be their second choice if he isn’t their first choice.

Obama began his stump today by making an appeal to voters, “If you’re not going to caucus for me, make me your second choice. I know that some of you had made early commitments and now you regret it, you’re thinking 'I wish I had held off because I hadn’t heard Barack yet.'... I can still be your second choice.”

Campaign manager David Plouffe said on a conference call this morning that Obama is the strongest second choice candidate in the race. He said Edwards is strong but that Clinton doesn’t bode as well as a second choice. Plouffe also said Obama could benefit from the second choice option.

[melt]

It's official: Barack Obama is now the "Fred Thompson of the Democratic Party...

[digger48]

That hat must be sitting on Obamas halo.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Looks like Obama is bucking for VP.

[eyedigress]

Predicted from word go. They will crash hard.

[claudiustg]

The Hillary people showed him the file.

[GAB-1955]

That strategy worked for Lincoln in 1860. He was everyone’ second choice for President.

[dforest]

How many of us women would have said that to our favorite guy?

Never mind.

[onedoug]

I saw his wife on C-SPAN earlier today and am not sure which is more stupid.

[Dr. Sivana]

This is a SMART move on Obama's part. This is a caucus, not a primary. In the Dem rules, candidates not getting 15% at an individual caucus are eliminated, and those supporters can jump to a new candidate.

So, assume Clinton, Obama and Edwards typically meet the 15% threshold ... Dodd, Biden, Kucinich and maybe Richardson will not. Zero Kucinich supporters will go to Clinton. Asuming the Dodd and Biden supporters have to move simultaneously, they may go any number of ways. I don't see too many of them gravitating towards Clinton. Obama is wise to make the pitch, because it may make the difference between 1st and third. Of course, Edwards is making the same pitch. Clinton can't acknowledge that she could be a mere second choice.

[bill1952]

Gee, and I always thought that second place was just the first loser, but not in dem politics, I guess.

[river rat]

Obama has ALWAYS been a pile of #2 in my book...

[doc1019]

Not being up on my Lincoln history … did he indicate, as Obama is doing, that he would have been happy with second place? Did they even have such a thing as a state caucus back in the day?

[Brilliant]

do they ask you who your second choice is in Iowa?

[GAB-1955]

What he did from after the 1858 Senatorial election to the Chicago convention in 1860 was to make it clear that the other candidates, Seward, Stanton, Cameron, and Bates, were first-rate men, and he would be happy to be everyone’s second choice in the event none of them could get the nomination. (They were first-rate men; all four of them served in Lincoln’s cabinet). Sure enough, no one won on the first ballot, or the second; Lincoln won on the third ballot.

I sometimes think the old smoke-filled room was a cleaner and more efficient process than this four-year pandering, but Lincoln and Stanton worked hard for that nomination for two years, so it wasn’t that much more efficient than the current primary system.

[doc1019]

Thanks. Great insight into our political history.

[melt]

Thanks. That was interesting.

[Iron Munro]

Obama has been having wierd dreams and has reached a decision.

He decided he doesn't want to be just another unexplained suicide found lying in a park somewhere with three slugs in the back of his head.

OBAMA'S WORST NIGHTMARE

[melt]

LOL!

Obama has a "shot" at the nomination, I see...

[GAB-1955]

It is very hard to arrange a whack on a senator from Illinois who can arrange for Chicago police detectives or Illinois State Police for protection, you know. Obama thinks he can win and I’m sure he could too. Hillary doesn’t have the resources and she has the visibility to suppose she would have political enemies that powerful killed.

[Iron Munro]

Only the Shadow knows.....