Obama has come within 30-40 miles from WI (Minneapolis and Chicago suburbs), but will not campaign.   Why?  Reagan and FDR wouldn’t have hesitated.  NOT campaigning shows:  cowardice or indifference, whereas even a losing effort (like Reagan for Bork)  can get you at least a grudging respect.   Obama and his Democratic colleagues are not stupid or cowardly- why do they repeatedly blow obvious political opportunities?

The answer is that the Democratic Party and Obama are not an autonomous agents trying to “win” in a party competition.  Winning must be subordinated to other considerations.  Some possibilities in WI are:

1)  teaching people that ‘there is no alternative”, and the protests are always futile,  2) new activists reinforced by a win in WI would be a threat to take over the party,  or 3) at least one of the plutocrats (0.0001%er)s has intervened personally.

Obama’s action looks as cold as Stalin’s halting the Red Army before Warsaw in 1944.