Hard work and organization earned Hillary Clinton a win in Tennessee during Super Tuesday.
Clinton began organizing the state last fall, enlisting volunteers to make phone calls into other areas such as Iowa and New Hampshire where help was needed. That early work helped the campaign get ready for the Super Tuesday vote and also got buy-in from volunteers who had already invested their time and money in the candidate.
As election time neared, Clinton got more staffers into the state early, set up a headquarters and used the volunteers she had to get even more help. The campaign also motivated those volunteers to talk up their support for their candidate.
That was followed by visits from the candidate, President Clinton and Chelsea, demonstrating that they wanted Tennessee enough to come ask for the votes. The extra attention Tennessee got with Hillary here on the night of the South Carolina primaries also helped.
While Obama runs a good campaign, he has not been as fully organized as Clinton and that's what put Tennessee into Hillary's win column.
What Obama has now is momentum, but not a highly-developed field campaign. He does well in speeches and personal contact and not so well in 30-second spots.
Time is Obama's friend and if he can use it to get in front of enough people, he may well overtake Hillary, but the Clinton machine operates efficiently and it has proven to be effective. If Hillary finds a new strategy that undercuts Obama's effectiveness, it could take her to the White House.
Hillary's success so far shows that the tried and true methods of hard work and asking people for votes is still effective at winning campaigns, but it is still vulnerable to a competitor that hits on the right message and has the charisma to sell it.
- Jim Grinstead
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