Hillary Clinton... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another Henry Kissinger...
will be facing far more than a resurgent Bernie Sanders
...The only openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords...
. She will face mounting evidence of an open political rebellion among white Americans.
Your party is racist. You talk down to whites based on their color. You pronounce us racist whatever we do. And then you want us to vote for you.
The dynamic has already been well-established among Republicans, where it is most acute given the predominantly white demographics of the party. Working-class whites, buffeted by the Great Recession and an economic recovery that has seen the wealthy move further ahead, are forming a key nexus of the Trump vote.
Black Lives Matter. Don't say "all lives matter." We saw what happens when somebody's dumb enough to do that.
Now, white voters appear to be stirring the Democratic race in similarly surprising ways. Senator Sanders of Vermont has long held a lead on former Secretary of State Clinton in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Feb. 9. New polls show that he is now essentially tied with Clinton in Iowa -- and even ahead among white voters nationally -- ahead of the Feb. 1 caucuses there.
Sanders isn't Clinton. That might be a factor. Martin O'Malley is nobody.
These first primary states -- among the whitest in America -- could dramatically change the narrative of Clinton's primary campaign from one of inevitability to one that suggests she is teetering on a repeat of 2008, when she lost to underdog Barack Obama.
I inhaled. That was the point...
In 2016, the demographics could work in her favor, with the states that follow Iowa and New Hampshire being much more diverse, and Clinton holding a large lead on Sanders among black and Latino voters. But the evidence that white primary voters might opt for a general election between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, at least at this moment, is a graphic indicator of how their thirst for "change" has only broadened and deepened since Mr. Obama's election eight years ago.
The change they appear to want is more than a change of party or ideology to something approaching a reset button for American politics. A Trump or Sanders presidency would represent a profound rejection of business as usual in Washington. Now, it seems, white voters of both parties are seriously considering it -- at least fleetingly, in the case of Democrats.
On the Republican side, the trend has been going on long enough that its causes have become fairly well known. With establishment Republicans unable to coalesce around a single candidate, antiestablishment candidates such as Mr. Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas have built strong momentum heading into the Iowa caucuses.
Sanders's latest rise has come so suddenly and unexpectedly that its causes are less clear. Yet despite the galactic differences between Sanders and Trump on policy, a clear line strings them together as politicians.