The bottom line on Clinton and Obama

Howard Fineman • E-mail

WASHINGTON - I don’t usually make predictions, but here’s one: On Caucus Night in Iowa next January, Bill Clinton will be riding shotgun in a van, herding his wife’s supporters to caucus sites.

As Sen. Barack Obama doubles down on Iowa — he’s there all this week — and on the other “early” states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, the Clintons will shape-shift into heat-seeking missiles, aiming for quick-strike, pre-emptive wins that will end the nomination race almost as soon as it starts.

Can they pull it off? Inside the Beltway, the punditocracy obsesses about the national fundraising race, in which Hillary executed a shrewd maneuver by trumping Obama’s quarterly total ($19 million) with a much larger one of her own ($27 million, of which $22 million can be spent during the primaries).

But the crucial, little-understood numbers in the Democratic race are these: 30 (the astonishing number of staffed, paid organizing offices Obama has up and running in Iowa) and 17 (the astonishingly low percentage of New Hampshire voters who say they have “definitely” decided whom they will support in their primary).

The bottom line of 30 and 17: Obama has a shot at defying the Clintons in both places, no matter what the national generic horse race numbers seem to show at the moment.

First, Obama needs to build up a lead in Iowa to withstand the fusillades sure to come. He is showing a few signs that he can do so.

At the Democratic candidates’ Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa, two weeks ago, I asked David Axelrod, Obama media chief, to assess the state of the campaign.

Message board   What do you think of Obama's candidacy?

Didn’t his candidate need to crank up the volume against Hillary? He displayed a calm smile and said “no.” At that point, he said, Obama really hadn’t gone on TV to try to systematically sell his lions-and-lambs vision of a new kind of inclusive, thoughtful, generous-spirited politics.

“We really haven't systematically introduced Barack to the people here yet,” said Axelrod. “Let’s wait to see what happens once we go up with a new ad here,” he told me.

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