Expectations game on Super Tuesday

By Jay Warren
WSLS10 Anchor
Published: February 5, 2008

Here’s just a quick observation about the night so far. There’s going to be a battle about who won the expectations game.

On the Democratic side, initially the pressure was on Hillary Clinton given her in some cases huge lead in the Super Tuesday states. But over the past five days, Obama was surging, either catching Clinton or surpassing her in the polls. The early exit polls today showed Obama winning states like Massachusetts and New Jersey. All the sudden the expectations game shifted. No longer was Clinton supposed to win. Instead it was Barack Obama. And, as the results have come in tonight, it appears Clinton has surpassed the new, downplayed expectations, while Obama has underperformed. Clinton prevailed in MA despite endorsements from Kennedy and Kerry for Obama. And she pulled out a solid win in NJ. In reality, they are both winning states and splitting the delegates, but the media spin of Hillary coming from behind could drown out the delegate count.

On the Republican side, John McCain came in with high expectations tonight and he seems to have met those expectations at least in the number of states won. Mitt Romney was surging late in the pre-election polls. But, he is underperforming tonight. Perhaps the biggest winner in the expectations game is Mike Huckabee. No one was paying any attention to him. The media was portraying this as a two person race between McCain and Romney and Huckabee surprised them all. So far he’s won AL, AR, and WV and he’s competitive in other southern states.

The expectations game matters and so far Huckabee and Clinton seme to be winning it.

Of course California hasn’t come in yet and it could change the entire night. Stay tuned.