McAuliffe Makes the Feb. 5 Argument

Terry McAuliffe, one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest fund-raisers and the former chair of the D.N.C., just repeated his belief, and the campaign’s new talking point, that the nominating process will be decided on Feb. 5.

“I think this thing will finally be over on Feb 5,” he said on a conference call, referring to Super Duper Tuesday. “One huge advantage we have at the Clinton campaign is that from day one we were going to run a national campaign.”

Here’s how McAuliffe argued that same point on the Clinton plane last night.

“There are 27 contests between today and Feb. 5,” he said as the campaign and the reporters flew to New Hampshire. “We’re going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party, I feel as strongly today as I ever have.”

The campaign is obviously not giving up on New Hampshire (as much as it may sound that way), and is aggressively trying to beat back Obama with a win here. McAuliffe said there will be new ads in New Hampshire tonight and tomorrow.