My suspicion is that the rumor was intentionally planted by the Obama campaign. I wonder if part of his strategy on Thursday night was to derail Richardson, and try to ensure that it was not a four-way race in New Hampshire. As I understand it, our strategy was to gain viability and at least one delegate in as many precincts as possible, and that we were in good shape, given anticipated turnout. But with the large number of brand new “democrats” that the Obama camp turned out, the viability threshhold was higher, and in most places, we didn't make it.

Having a better idea of their likely turnout, the Obama people might have started the rumor to quash efforts by the Richardson groups to pick up enough supporters to become viable. I have heard and read of a number of places where it worked out that way, and the Richardson people mostly went over to Obama.

On the subject of the high turnout, I would estimate that nearly half of the total Obama count in our precinct were new registrations. As people arrived, I was helping with the new voter registration, and virtually all of them headed straight for the Obama corner. Many had pre-printed registration forms, all filled out except for the signature.

In our precinct, had there been a genuine deal, the Obama people could have easily “given” us enough people to be viable without affecting their delegate count: the effect would have been to prevent Edwards (also non-viable, but with a larger group than we had for Richardson) from getting a delegate. But despite their captain's talk of a “deal,” so far as he was concerned it was strictly a one-way deal: Richardson supporters going to Obama.

The one concession asked from the Obama camp was that the Richardson people would be allowed to choose the delegates for the convention, which all of the Obama group was okay with.

Edwards benefitted the most on second alignment. He was barely liable on first alignment.

http://thecaucus.blo...

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David Plouffe, Obama campaign manager, responding to the report that Mr. Obama had reached an agreement for reciprocal support with Bill Richardson's campaign, insisted the campaign had reached “no formal arrangements” with any of his rivals. But he said that “there are certainly places where our precinct captains want to work with Richardson” supporters – to gain second-choice support in cases where Mr. Richardson doesn't reach the threshold to compete, or to lend Mr. Richardson surplus backers in instances where they can't yield any additional Obama delegates.

“We're giving our precinct captains a lot of latitude to work this out,” Mr. Plouffe said. “We're going to fight as hard as we can for every one” of Mr. Richardson's available supporters, and “It comes down to how well our precinct captains do.”

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