Nobody’s?

Walter Shapiro asks “Whose fault is the Clinton-Obama stalemate?” The article then more or less argues that although Clinton’s campaign has been egregiously incompetent, Obama’s campaign has also had a significant share of “substantial misadventures.” But shouldn’t we consider the possibility that the race has reached a quasi-equilibrium with Obama in a relatively narrow but decisive lead because both of the candidates are really, really impressive? That the core supporters of both aren’t moving because they, I dunno, really like their preferred candidate? Doesn’t this seem considerably more likely?

This is especially true since the examples Shaprio offers are either trivial (anyone want to make a case that the race would be significantly different if Clinton kept the same slogan?) or projection (I certainly think it’s outrageous to push to try to seat delegates based on a straw poll with one major candidate on the ballot, but I’d love to see evidence that this has been a factor for a significant number of actual primary voters.) Even the one really consequential Clinton blunder that Shapiro identifies — allowing Obama to run the table in the February caucuses with nearly token opposition — was the outgrowth of a strategy that was reasonable (invest resources to end it on Super Tuesday) that just didn’t work out.

I know we’re trained to be cynical, but at some point you have to consider the possibility that the race has gone on because the Democrats have two broadly ideologically similar candidates with, in different ways, formidable political skills. All campaigns make mistakes, but that’s the key dynamic here; the race wouldn’t be close for so long if both candidates didn’t have a lot of strongly committed supporters.