With that Drudge leak of her internal polls, I thought I'd read a live blog of her conference call on Talk Left. It doesn't look like they're expecting a big win. In fact, it seems like they think it will be a close race.
First there's
Wolfson says Obam [sic, it's a live blog, got to expect some typos I guess] has outspent Clinton 3-1, inlcuding 7 million in TV ads. If Obama can't win a big swing state with such an enormous spending advantage how can he win such a state. Obama has had problems winning key states like Florida, Michigan and Ohio. Obama is doing all he can to WIN, not come close, in PA. In an attempt to knock Clinton out of the race. If he fails to, it will again raise questions as to whether he can win these key states.
and then we have:
Bill Sammon asks CW is that if Obama is within 5 or 6, then Hillary does not win, doesn't Clinton need a 20 point victory?
Garin say no, Obama has thrown all his resources in PA to deliver a KO thus the stakes are now different.
Wolfson adds that no SD is going to say "Obama outspent you by 3-1 and you only won by a few points."
In addition to showing that the Clinton camp is worried about the election being close - this is not the spin of a group expecting a double digit win - this argument backfires in two ways: it highlights the difference in strategies between the camps and it points out again Obama's fund raising advantages.
How did Clinton get in this mess she's in? Her biggest mistake has been to separate the states into two groups - those she will try in and those she wouldn't. Her lack of effort is what made it possible for Obama to drum up those large leads in delegate counts. This spin puts focus on the fact that Obama had a better strategy from the beginning to win the race, which is an argument that he'd be a better general election candidate.
As for, "no SD is going to say, 'Obama outspent you by 3-1 and you only won by a few points,'" perhaps, but they are going to notice the fact that Obama had the resources to do that and in doing so was able to make up large margins in the polls. Maybe he didn't get from 20 to a lead, but if he was able to get from 20 to 2-3, that means he'd have a great chance of picking up states where he's only down by a few points.
Those arguments being so bad for Clinton makes me think that their internals aren't as rosy as the morale promoting leak. Floating an argument that promotes your weaknesses seems like a big step to do just to reduce expectations. Rendall apparently said that they were only up a couple points. Right now that seems like a more accurate assessment of how they feel the race is going.