The way I've thought of this, as mentioned above Obama was leading Ryan prior to the scandal breaking. However, there's a difference between an Obama-Ryan campaign where Obama is winning with ~50% and the Obama-Keyes campaign where Obama was winning with ~70%. In the prior, even if you're going to win, do you really spend time out of state campaigning for other candidates? Or send donations out of state? Or send staffers to help other campaigns? In an Obama-Ryan race, yeah barring unforeseen circumstances Obama probably wins, but it's a more normal victory than what he got OTL, which means that he comes in as a more normal junior Senator from a solidly Democratic state without having built up the good will within the Democratic party that he did at an institutional level and not having won an utter blowout. Given all of that, ignoring the effects on the actual primary in 2008, does Obama figure that he'll run for President after less than one term without that much distinguishing him from any other newly elected Democratic Senator other than a well recieved speech at the DNC? Or does he and his team (especially Michelle Obama, who apparently was very skeptical about the 2008 Presidential campaign) decide that he's young enough that he can wait a decade or two before striking out for the Presidency?