There’s always been a predetermined quality to Martha Coakley’s campaign for Massachusetts governor—with pundits and politicos just waiting for her to fall on her face so that they can flash the “choke” sign.

Having so badly blown her run for the U.S. Senate four years ago against Scott Brown—when she infamously took a vacation during the heat of the campaign and dismissed the legendary Red Sox pitcher (and Brown backer) Curt Schilling as a “Yankee fan”—Coakley’s missteps this time around, even the minor ones, are receiving a disproportionate amount of attention. When she mistakenly said that Massachusetts’s gas tax was 10 cents per gallon (it’s actually 24 cents) back in May, Worcester.com ran an article headlined “Coakley’s Latest Gaffe Joins Massachusetts Political History” and equated her gas-tax flub to such epic bumbles as John Kerry’s windsurfing and Michael Dukakis’s furloughing of Willie Horton. The fact that her state-issued car—which Coakley enjoys as Massachusetts’s attorney general—was twice spotted parked in a tow zone warranted a whole article in the Globe.

In the past week, Coakley’s critics have been given so much fodder that they’ve gone into full Reggie Miller mode. First, the Globe released a poll that showed Coakley trailing her Republican opponent, Charlie Baker, by 9 points. Then, a few days after that, the Globe’s editorial board endorsed Baker—the first time the paper has backed a Republican gubernatorial candidate in 20 years. As Politico Magazine taunted in its recent Coakley profile, “You could call her the Bill Buckner of politics, if she even knew who the Red Sox were.” The headline on that Politico piece? “Martha Chokeley,” of course.

But is Coakley really choking against Baker? The attorney general, to be sure, will never be confused for a political dynamo. She’s a product of a sclerotic Massachusetts Democratic Party establishment that specializes in producing hacks (and oftentimes felonious ones at that). In fact, the only Democrat to be elected governor in Massachusetts in the last 24 years is Deval Patrick, who won in large part because he wasn’t part of that Democratic establishment.

Still, Coakley is a much better candidate than she was four years ago. For one thing, she’s actually campaigning this time. She’s also boned up on the ridiculous, but nonetheless important, local sports trivia. (Can you name the backup quarterback for the New England Patriots? Coakley did.) Her ads, like this one about her brother who committed suicide, are among the better ones this cycle. There’s a reason she beat two strong candidates—Massachusetts Treasurer Steve Grossman and health care expert Don Berwick—in the Democratic Primary. She outperformed them.