Dueling Spin

Trying to set expectations is part of the political game. Everyone knows that's the media's job but it's worth a shot and today both campaigns did their level best at setting the bar for what constitutes a winning night on Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton's campaign, in a conference call with reporters, argued today that Barack Obama's campaign has "anointed themselves as the frontrunner" in this race and argued that if Obama fails to sweep all four states – Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont – then it will be an indication that Democrats are suffering some "buyer's remorse."

This is a different tune than the campaign was singing after losses in a string of state earlier this month when they identified Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania as states they were confident of winning. "This whole nominating process has come down to Texas and Ohio," Bill Clinton said last week. Now that recent polls show Obama with a slight lead in Texas and Ohio getting close, they're pitching a must-win scenario for Obama.

His campaign told reporters today that Clinton has already failed in her campaign's stated goal of narrowing the delegate gap on Tuesday regardless of the outcome. "They have a huge task in front of them, which is to try to erase this pledged delegate lead," manager David Plouffe said. "They are going to fail by that measure." Because of the proportional delegate allocation system in the Democratic Party and the dual primary/caucus system in Texas, it's not unthinkable Obama could win more delegates even if he loses both big states. "If our lead after Tuesday is in the 160 range, they would need to win 74% of every remaining pledged delegate to get the pledged delegate contest back to even," Plouffe said.

So, what will constitute a win for each? If Clinton were to win both Texas and Ohio, especially by a margin of five points or more, she will get a measure of victory. She will have added those two states to other big wins in California, New York and New Jersey and would have firmer ground on which to argue her general election strength. At the very least, she may stem a flood of super delegates towards Obama. But anything less would be hard for her campaign to explain. Obama will certainly retain a healthy delegate lead and needs only a win in Texas or Ohio for a win.

Then again, we'll only know for sure what's a win when we see it.