Hillary Clinton doesn't just want to beat Bernie Sanders in South Carolina. She wants to beat expectations.
She's running more than 20 points ahead of Sanders in most polls heading into Saturday's Democratic presidential primary, buoyed by overwhelming support from the state's black voters. Now she's looking to the state to re-establish an air of inevitability around her campaign — and deliver such an embarrassing defeat to Sanders that it's hard for him ever to recover.
She might have been able to ease up a little after getting actor Morgan Freeman to narrate ads airing in the Palmetto State and winning the endorsement of Rep. James Clyburn, one of the state's most influential black Democrats.
Instead, she rolled out dozens of endorsements and appearances from black political, cultural and civil rights leaders. Clinton will campaign in South Carolina every day through the primary, rather than focus on the Super Tuesday states that vote three days later. She's bringing in former President Bill Clinton for "get out of the vote" rallies through primary day Saturday.
South Carolina Democrats' rejection of Clinton in favor of Barack Obama in 2008 was a hard lesson for the Clintons about taking nothing for granted. But her efforts here seem more than that, an attempt to run up the score on Sanders, whose campaign momentum already was slowed significantly by Clinton's 5-point win in Nevada.
"Look, I believe every election or caucus has to be taken seriously," Clinton said in a town hall Tuesday. "I'm taking no vote, no place for granted."
Sanders is playing his own expectations game.
"When we started in South Carolina, my message wasn't resonating with anybody," he said in the town hall, answering a question about why his message isn't connecting as well with blacks in the state.
