Oh my: Sanders takes lead over Hillary in Iowa

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Hillary's inevitability run into some problems once before? This all feels very familiar. Not that a poll here and a poll there in two states means Bernie Sanders is going to be the nominee. That's not the point. The point is that she's supposed to be the overwhelming clear choice, and he's supposed to be a socialist crank with crazy hair running to give voice to the left-wing fringe. A race like that is not supposed to be close to being close.

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And yet:

The Vermont senator is favorite among 41% of Iowa likely Democratic participants, compared with 40% supporting the former Secretary of State, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday. That marks a major reversal from early July, when Clinton was ahead of Sanders, 52% to 33%. Sanders, an anti-establishment candidate who has made economic inequality the rallying cry of his campaign, has surged in polls throughout the summer, benefiting from discontent among Democratic voters. Clinton, meanwhile, has suffered as a result of the controversy over her private email server. “Sanders has seized the momentum by offering a message more in line with disproportionately liberal primary and caucus voters,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “He is the candidate of the Democratic left, against his own party’s bosses and their prized presidential candidate, Secretary Hillary Clinton.” Sanders is also polling ahead of Clinton in New Hampshire, the second Democratic nominating contest.

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The second paragraph makes it sound like this is about nothing but the e-mail story sucking the wind out of Hillary's campaign and handing the momentum to Bernie, who's cleverly taking advantage. I think it's a lot more basic than that: Hillary is both a liar and a poseur, and everyone at all points on the political spectrum knows it. When she pretends to be a liberal, anti-capitalist champion of the people, the left-wing base doesn't believe her for a second. When she claims her e-mail practices were above board, no one - especially the Democratic Party's most important constituency, the media - believes her. When she touts her resume and claims it makes her prepared for the top job, no one from left to center to right believes her. The question is not why she's crashing and burning. That's as obvious as the day is long. The question is why anyone still supports her at all. The answer to that is that everyone from campaign donors to consultants to county chairmen to local elected officials who value their status within the Democratic Party have presumed for a long time now that doing the bidding of the Clintons was the safest and probably most lucrative way to remain in good stead. It was probably made clear to them long ago that loyalty would be rewarded, and disloyalty would neither be forgotten nor forgiven. They value their vendor contracts, and nobody would have more money to pay them than Hillary anyway. And they sure didn't want to lose their access by backing a losing horse. So basically you still have a fairly formidable campaign structure spewing out the talking points and continuing to reinforce the idea of Queen Inevitable, while the number of ordinary people actually buying it is roughly zero. But until recently, even those who couldn't stand the thought of her had a hard time believing it would do any good to back one of the fringe upstarts. Why are we suddenly seeing poll numbers for Sanders that reflect Hillary might actually be beatable? Because the party establishment's bootlicking on her behalf is no match for the clear reality that she is a horrible candidate who would make a horrendous president. And the more the public sees of her, the more it can't help but recognize that fact. This is a real dilemma for the Democrats. If they go ahead and nominate her anyway, she'll be in everyone's faces 24/7 for six months, and whenever she is ubiquitous in the public's eyes, her numbers plummet because listening to her talk is like hearing fingernails on a chalkboard - and that's before you even stop to consider the appalling substance of what she's saying. But if they dump her, who do they nominate? A socialist? Can you imagine the United States with a socialist president? Oh wait . . .

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