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• Tuesday, February 5, 2008 05:21 PM

  Still surprised?

  Joan Walsh summarizes the candidates' struggle for California nicely, but an even more concise summary might be simply that now, at the point when it really matters, Obama's campaign is not yet as polished as Clinon's but is close enough. He has a way to go before he's ready for prime time, but he's done enough to compete.

  So Editor, it's worth asking: what has really, truly been surprising? There were always open questions in this campaign — could Clinton's opponents get up to speed in time? Would she keep her own campaign's dirty tactics under control or would they backfire? But these are questions that simply couldn't be answered in advance. To describe (most of) what's happened in the Democratic primary as a surprise is something of a misuse of the word — like being surprised when a forecast 50% chance of rain turns into a sunny day.

  It's also worth asking — without the challenge that Obama represents, would Clinton have bothered with, say, Latinos? The great virtue of competitive elections is that they allow the electorate — us — to exert more pressure on our would-be leaders than if they were cruising along to a predictable win.

  Each of the candidates (including Edwards, though he never found a way to raise his campaign to the necessary level) has made the others more accountable and in so doing been essential to the most inspired, impassioned political campaign in over a generation. Democrats would do well to remember the power of that frisson in November, and beyond.

  —Amity Read Amity's other letters
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