Obama camp looks beyond Super Tuesday

Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) campaign said Monday that it is adding staff to the states that vote in February after Super Tuesday in anticipation of a protracted nomination battle.

According to a memo from campaign manager David Plouffe, the campaign has hired or will hire staff in those states by the middle of this week. In addition, the memo states that Obama has raised more than $4 million in the last two and a half days just online, allowing the campaign to be “financially competitive — if not superior.”

{mosads}As the campaigns stare down Super Tuesday, Plouffe’s memo is an apparent effort to crow about a landslide win in South Carolina and downplay expectations in Florida’s beauty contest and some of the Feb. 5 states.

Plouffe wrote that the Obama campaign thinks its voter contact operation “dwarfs” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.), but that the Illinois senator is planning long-term for a marathon nomination fight.

“We believe that it is unlikely that this contest will be decided on February 5th; therefore we are also organizing and planning for the rest of the February states,” Plouffe wrote, adding, “We believe these states offer real opportunity for Senator Obama and believe if February 5 is roughly a split verdict, we can win the majority of the states and delegates over those next two weeks.”

The campaign, however, is hardly conceding Super Tuesday. Plouffe wrote that Obama’s goal is to secure as many delegates as possible on Feb. 5. However, according to Plouffe, no state should be viewed as a “bellwether,” as Clinton “has already begun to signal that they will cherry-pick some states to demonstrate success.”

“So while the Clinton campaign will likely wave shiny baubles in front of the media to try and divert their focus to certain states — or non-events like Florida — we will stay focused on doing as well as we can in each of the 22 states on February 5th and preparing for the nine states that come in rapid succession in those following two weeks,” Plouffe wrote.