Three things give momentum to a campaign for a presidential nomination in the USA and power it to victory: Expectations. Expectations. Expectations.
The only truly memorable moment of Bill Clinton’s 1992 Democratic victory was his New Hampshire primary loss: where his second-place finish surprised the political establishment and lent him the ‘comeback kid’ moniker than turbo-charged his campaign. In 2004, the Kerry campaign had to go so far as hush up the fact they knew they were going to win the Iowa caucuses for months prior to the vote in order to pull off a ‘shock win’. The impact of John McCain’s New Hampshire primary win in 2008 was the fact he trailed Mitt Romney by 18 points just a month before.
And Team Hillary have been playing the expectations game for months. As early as July last year, Nate Silver reported that they were talking up Sanders’ in Iowa and New Hampshire.
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