Bernie's January Haul Is Mighty Impressive

The Democrats Face a Revolution

In Sarandon’s telling, the unkempt socialist senator from Vermont is the Barack Obama of 2016. To many Sanders supporters, Obama’s successes—from the Iowa caucuses to tough two national elections—render moot the argument Clinton is once again making that she’s the only one who can win. ...... Sanders is sharply ideological, beloved mostly by white liberals, and represents the party’s 1960s protest-movement past more than its techno-utopian future. .....

a field of Republican candidates that is “so weak and so weird,” he said, many Democrats believe the presidency is theirs no matter who they nominate—so why not go with their hearts?

....... It’s one thing to draw thousands of kids to a Vampire Weekend concert on a college campus, as Bernie would do a few days hence. It’s another to bring them out here. ...... The 2016 campaign’s twin unexpected phenomena—the parallel rise of Sanders and Donald Trump, who currently command an eerily similar 37 and 36 percent of their parties’ national vote in poll averages—have taken by surprise the pundits and wise men and party establishments who fundamentally underestimated partisans’ desperate desire for extremes. ......

If Sanders pulls out a win on Monday, he will have proven yet again that what seemed far-out was actually the party mainstream.

....... “I’m also a socialist,” John Dallas, a goateed Mason City housepainter, told me matter-of-factly. “I mean, how’s that capitalism working out in the United States? It’s fine for the top one-tenth of one percent, but the other 90 percent of us aren’t doing so well.” ....... And so Sanders has exposed the left-wing ideals in the hearts of a substantial portion of Democrats, just as surely as Trump has illustrated liberals’ stereotypes about Republican nativism and xenophobia. A Democratic Party that strained for decades to position itself as moderate, and to ostracize its radical voices, has instead seen its long-suppressed liberal energy burst to the fore. ....... How severe are the Democrats’ divisions? The factions seem nowhere near as tribal and mutually incomprehensible as the Republican crackup;

most Sanders supporters I met said they respected Clinton, even if they didn’t trust her, and Clinton supporters said they get where the Sanders people are coming from

......... It’s still a mystery why, exactly, Clinton lost control of this race. As of mid-December, she seemed to be sitting pretty, winning the debates, leading in Iowa, and catching up to Sanders in New Hampshire. But sometime around the new year that changed, and Sanders surged. ........

the professionals behind Team Clinton reacted to this surprise development with all the grace and equanimity of a mule that’s just been bitten by a deerfly and is thrashing wildly around.

Clinton attacked Sanders with wild implausibility, insisting he was both too left-wing to win and not liberal enough on certain issues, primarily gun control. When Sanders lashed rather mildly back, her campaign flew off the handle, accusing him in dire terms of a viciousness ill-befitting his gentle reputation......... Most D.C. Democrats still do not believe Clinton to be in much real peril. .......

Sanders, however, hopes an Iowa-New Hampshire one-two punch will set off a chain reaction, dominos falling unstoppably as Clinton relives her miserable experience of 2008.

..... This is Clinton’s challenge: to argue for an extension of the status quo at a time when few people are satisfied with the way things are. .......

Clinton’s stay-the-course appeal felt like a postcard from another era when sensible centrism was still the rule in politics.

........ Clinton, in her speech, cast herself as the candidate of dogged incrementalism and detailed, specific proposals. ...... She spoke briskly and cogently, in well-practiced paragraphs ...... She cast Sanders’s grand plans for things like single-payer health care as destabilizing. She hugged a woman who’d lost her home. ...... Clinton said, as cameras clicked away, capturing the rare moment of intimacy. ......

we live in a time of revolution, unsettled and restive.

President Bill Clinton's closing argument for Hillary: “She’s the best changemaker I’ve ever met." Watch the new video ⬇️

Posted by Hillary Clinton on Saturday, January 30, 2016