Let's say the Republican field more closely mirrored the Democrats. Imagine there were two Republicans running for president, Jeb Bush and Not Jeb Bush, where Not Jeb Bush did a better job appealing to the outer boundary of the party. Do you think that Not Jeb Bush couldn't roll up 20,000 people at a campaign stop in, say, Houston?

This is the point at which the question invariably turns to the contrast between Clinton and Sanders. Clinton isn't drawing these crowds, the argument goes. Sanders is capturing the energy. Both of which are true points. Sanders, as the underdog and the newcomer, has an energy that Clinton doesn't. She is not drawing the same crowds.

Part of this, though, is a conscious decision. Sanders, coming from the back of the pack, has to show that he's a legit candidate. He needs to be chuffed up. He needs to look big. Clinton has been trying to do the opposite. Her campaign launch was a Sunday e-mail followed by a road trip to Iowa. She's doing her best not to look like a behemoth. Her unofficial launch, on Roosevelt Island, was a neatly tailored group of a few thousand, packed into a space meant to display an audience that size for the cameras.

Could Clinton fill an arena in Los Angeles if she wanted to? Of course she could. Unquestionably. If you think Hillary Clinton can't do basic body mobilization when she needs to, you haven't been paying attention to American politics for the past few decades. There are unions in Los Angeles that can fill a stadium on a week's notice. This is not as big a task as it looks.