AP: Sanders lowers expectations in Iowa

[Dovidoff]

"Sanders said in an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday that the notion that he must win Iowa's caucuses against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton is "mythology" and appeared to lower expectations about the race."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sanders-its-a-mythology-that-i-need-to-win-iowa_us_56a7e4a2e4b04936c0e89143

[workinclasszero]

1. Hmm

Bernie must know something his followers don't.

[stonecutter357]

2. K&R!

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. BS Translation = 'My internal polling shows that I'm not going to win IA'.

[Treant]

4. But Iowa IS a must win

Sanders' strengths will be the Northeast and caucus states--and he needs pretty much every delegate to overcome Clinton's native advantages in most primary states and states that aren't very white.

A weak showing in Iowa starts to negate any advantage he might have in caucus states--he might motivate, but he can't get them out to vote. And that does not bode well for a potential win, or even a decent showing.

Lose IA and I'm convinced this is over by Super Tuesday. Win IA by too small an amount and it's over slightly after that. Sanders needs to kick ass in IA...and that isn't going to happen.

[yallerdawg]

5. Some pundits are already saying...

because expectations are so high - if Hillary wins in Iowa by 4 or more points - game over for Sanders.

And it's a shame because the expectations were driven by 'outlier' polling numbers.

Watch "With All Due Respect" today. On MSNBC and later on Bloomberg. Or stream at Bloomberg Politics.

[Treant]

7. Sucks, don't it suck some, y'all?

Maybe they shouldn't have trumpeted the fact that Sanders is an unstoppable force that everybody will support and set expectations sky high.

There's nowhere to go but down. And down it's going.

I'm not sure what a bad loss in IA would do to the NH results--probably not a great deal--but maybe we'll need to revise those numbers as well.

[Thinkingabout]

6. Yes, sometimes reality sets into focus, now somethings are no

longer campaign promises.

[72DejaVu]

8. Hillary's "inevitability" was bad.

Bernie's inevitability was good.

Now it's bad, too.

Hard to keep up with it all.

[Cha]

9. Yeah yeah yeah.. everything's mythology.

[question everything]

10. It really will be up to the O'Malley supporters

The way the bizarre Democratic caucus goes, voters stand in different parts of the room, in groups supporting their candidates. Depending on the number of attendees, a threshold is established for "viability." The supporters of the non viable candidates hen start negotiating with the other groups.

Thus, if the O'Malley supporters will choose to join Hillary, she will have greater chances of winning, one caucus at at time.

Of course, this assumes that O'Malley supporters will be enough to tilt the final count.