It starts on Saturday with the Louisiana primary, the Nebraska Caucus and the Washington State Caucus.
Obama should win easily in Louisiana, although it may not be the runaway that Georgia and South Carolina were. If the Nebraska Caucus is anything like the North Dakota Caucus, or Minnesota Caucus, Obama will win big there too. Caucuses seem to favor Obama, and though Washington State is the biggest challenge on Saturday, Obama may win in the Caucus format.
More below the flip
Sunday is the Maine Caucus, where Obama may again benefit from the Caucus format.
So, by the time Virginia votes, Obama is likely to have won three or four more states, and have done so by a large margin.
Now we have DC, Maryland, and Virginia. DC and Maryland will likely go big for Obama. Maryland's nearly 30% African American population bodes well for a big Obama victory. Virginia is still up in the air. But he has a good shot to win, and should at least keep it close.
This means that in the week after Super Tuesday, Obama may win all 7 states, at least 4 of them by wide margins.
A week after Virginia are the Hawaii Caucuses and Wisconsin primary. Once again, Obama looks favorable in both states. Not only is Hawaii a Caucus state, it is also the state where he was born. Add that to the win column. If Wisconsin is anything like Minnesota, Obama will be victorious there as well.
So here we have the month of February, which also happens to be Black History Month, where Obama may win all 9 states after Super Tuesday.
This brings us to March 4th. Vermont and Rhode Island are the small states to vote. Both are primaries. Obama may lose both or win both, but it is unclear at this point. Ohio and Texas are the big states to vote. Obama may be at a disadvantage in these big states right now, but because he has time, and money, he will have an opportunity to campaign in both states and tighten the race. People seem to support him the more they get to know him as a candidate. It is unreasonable to think he will lose all four states, especially with the momentum at his back from the previous 9 primaries. However, March 4th will be a challenging day that will test Obama's true strength as a candidate.
If the race is still close after March 4th, Obama will get the rural Wyoming Caucuses 4 days later; again a state working in his favor. That is followed by Mississippi 3 days after that, which has a population almost 40% African American.
Assuming he wins these two states, he gets almost 40 days without another primary to campaign in Pennsylvania.
Before Pennsylvania, 15 states will have voted since Super Tuesday. Obama is likely to win at least 11 of them. However, if he loses Ohio and Texas like he did California, all the other wins won't matter. The race will still be very much in doubt.
If he wants to sow up the nomination, Obama needs to win a big state, not currently in his favor, in the next 30 days. If he wins Virginia, or keeps it close, and he wins either Texas or Ohio, then the race will be pretty much over, with Pennsylvania the nail in the coffin.
If I were Hillary Clinton, I would be very nervous.
Dude is raising loads of money and can compete for delegates in every single state. A long race takes a lot of money, which he has. It allows him to slowly squeeze Clinton out without taking any big risks or going on the attack.
Hillary Clinton's best bet for beating Obama at this point would be to pull out of every state except Virgina, Texas and Ohio. Throw every cent possible into TX and OH and make that the firewall, line-in-the-sand, whatever. Spend every minute after Virginia personally campaigning in those 2 states. If she can run up the tally and walk away from March 4th with something on the order of 225 delegates that day, then she gets the momentum back and has enough breathing room in her delegate count to survive in good health until Pennsylvania is up in April. Which she'd then have to throw everything into from that point on since she'd still probably be hurting for money.
It's all about playing hopscotch here and just hoping that the few squares you're bothering to jump to will add up to a victory.
If she throws everything into OH & TX and fails to bury Obama that day, then she's screwed. No money, way behind on delegates and no momentum. She'd probably have to drop out. But the risk of that still beats getting slowly strangled all the way until the end of June.
Together, Virgina, Texas and Ohio make up nearly 38 million people. Combined, the other 12 states that vote prior to Pennsylvania make up 25 million. So, Obama needs to win one of those three states, and keep it close in the other two (within 5 or 6 points), to on pace with Hillary.
I believe it is Virginia and Ohio that decide it for Obama. He will likely lose in Texas, and needs to keep that race within 10. I think Pennsylvania will be in his favor if he does well enough in Ohio. The two states are similar in demographics, with average African-American populations and below-average Latino populations.
If Obama comes out of February with the string of post-Super Tuesday victories that we're all expecting, I bet the momentum and positive press will mean that he'll be polling in PA closer to 56-42. Not that anyone will even bother spending the money on polling PA until after March.
As for whether VA and Ohio 'decide' the race for Obama, I don't think it's so clear cut as that. Every other race for the rest of February is so favorable to Obama that a loss here would still find him ahead in the delegate count. Hillary definitely needs Ohio and Texas to even have a chance of winning, but so long as Obama stays over 40% in an average between those 2 states, I don't think her wins there would kill him. His money advantage allows him to campaign in so many other smaller states where he picks up delegates that add up to something big.
Hillary needs Ohio. Obama would like it.
Why do the Obama folks give so much credit to him for winning in caucuses where participation is limited?