Obama's caucus strategy

Obama has done so well in the Democratic race so far in part because of his performance in caucuses. The pattern at the beginning of the race, Obama wining the Iowa caucus, Hillary winning the New Hampshire primary, has repeated itself throughout the country.

Obama's won 8 out of the 9 caucuses held so far--and the only caucus Hillary won (Nevada) she actually lost, because while getting more votes Obama actually got more delegates. Obama won every caucus on Super Duper Tuesday, while Hillary won a majority of the primary states. Obama has won more primaries than Hillary (15 to 10), but the caucuses have been crucial to his edge in delegates.

Part of this is strategy; Obama's focused on caucus states, according to news reports. But he's focusing on them because he can win them for other reasons.

Nicholas Solter writes that Obama's edge in caucuses is due to basically two factors. First, Hillary is more difficult to support publicly, and second is that caucuses favor the upscale demographics within which do not break Hillary's way.

There are two reasons why Hillary's difficult to support publicly--she's polarizing and unlikeable, first of all, and secondly because Obama is the cool, in-candidate with "momentum."

Caucuses are hard to attend for working folks, because you have to take time off work, get a babysitter, etc. etc. It takes more effort to get there, and those with less of an interest in politics won't show. Lower-class demographics have less interest in politics, and barriers to turnout mitigate against their turning out. Clinton's supports are mainly in the lower-level demographics.

To organize supporters and get them to the polls, it helps if they are interested in politics and have the means to get to the caucus site/polling place. It also helps if they are passionate about their candidate. Obama is three-for-three on these counts.

Basically Obama's leveraged the passion, baby.

USA Today writes:

Clinton and her allies point to the nature of a caucus. Blue-collar and shift workers, they say, don't have the time or flexibility to show up at a certain time and stay for a couple of hours. If you're out of town, you're out of luck. Ditto if you can't get a babysitter.

Political analysts say passion and organization are key to caucus wins and Obama has them in greater measure. "He's got both an army of campaign workers and an operatic presentation" that excites people, says Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. "It's a very potent, very unusual combination."

Clinton has targeted early and large states. On Super Tuesday, she focused on — and won — New York, New Jersey, California and Massachusetts.