This will likely go down in the history of the 2016 Democrat primary as the key distinction between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Sanders has never run a national campaign and has spent most of his time dashing back and forth between Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s raised an impressive amount of money to run ads but he doesn’t have the ingrained machinery of a long standing political dynasty. What he’s lacked in long term staffing he’s made up for with mostly younger volunteers, knocking on doors and organizing events while they line up new supporters and get them to the polls. I have to give the man credit… it’s been an impressive operation thus far.

Facing off with him is Hillary Clinton, who is pretty much the exact opposite of Sanders in terms of campaign infrastructure, resources and experienced staff. The money she can summon up on a moment’s notice doesn’t hurt either. Now she’s in New Hampshire and lagging badly in the polls. If this were Bernie we were talking about he’d likely be in serious trouble. But for Hillary Clinton it was just a matter of picking up the phone. (Washington Post)

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has dispatched an army of over 150 staffers from its campaign headquarters in Brooklyn to boost the ground game in early states, primarily in New Hampshire.

The staffers have been driving up from New York to the relatively close Granite State in the final week of campaigning before the Feb. 9 primary.

Clinton faces an uphill struggle to compete with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) here, where polls show he has held a lead…

Some of the dozens of staffers who have left Brooklyn for field work have also been dispatched to Nevada and South Carolina, though the bulk will work in New Hampshire.

That’s a pretty sweet deal, being able to just place a call and have 150 experienced, paid campaign staffers hop in their vehicles and head out to New Hampshire. And once they arrive there are just ten counties in the Granite State. Having fifteen people in each one of them getting their ground game mobilized with the help of local staff and volunteers can make up for a lot of ills.

How badly do you think Sanders wishes he could summon that sort of a force to charge into battle on a moment’s notice? But he still may not have much to worry about. Hillary is way back in the polls for a reason. All of the staff in the world can’t change people’s minds if the message just isn’t resonating. New Hampshire seems to be feeling the Bern and he may just cruise through to a comfortable win. And if so, what’s the point of this entire tale?

This isn’t just a story about New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton can afford to soak up a loss there, pack up and head south. Then she’ll be in fresh territory where she can send out an army of worker bees to begin making calls and knocking on doors. Bernie will be much closer to starting from scratch by comparison. And in the end, this one news item about Clinton dispatching her army to Nashua is why I still don’t see much of a long term hope for Bernie taking the nomination away. (Absent Clinton being indicted, that is.) She’s just got too many guns in the arsenal.