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Originally Posted by Axeman
The speech was definitely how he bounced on the national scene. However most didn't think he was ready to run for 08. The smartest thing he and his campaign ever did, was see the glaring hole left open by the Clinton campaign, and then exploit the hell out of it.
The Clinton campaign totally ignored all caucus primaries. Obama and his campaign saw that this was their path to get noticed and create legitimacy. They put everything in the ground game and communications in those caucus primaries. It allowed them to win these easily, and collect the delegates to raise the profile and legitimacy of his campaign. These caucus states also came early before a lot of the larger primaries in the country. By the time Clinton and her campaign realized they were being triangulated, it was far to late to stop it. You can't just spring up a ground game in caucus states.
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I always thought that Obama and his group did these things early on so that they could (like you say, give legitimacy to his campaign and get some free press and fund raising) get him on the national radar to some extent and hope that Hillary selected him as her running mate.
As things turned out that early momentum never waned and when they combined that with his ability to give great speeches as well as the campaign's ability to engage younger voters it was like the stars just aligned for him and everything went right.