Meet the New Boss.... Same as the Old Boss

Yale Law School grad, Watergate Congressional investigation lawyer, First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the United States, United States Senator from New York, Presidential candidate with over 18 million votes, and Secretary of State. She has nearly every major endorsement in the Democratic Party and is the wife of the most popular Democrat, politician, and former President in the country. She's a world-wide respected leader. She's spent a lifetime fighting for Civil Rights, women's rights, children's rights, and progressive causes of all types.

If this wasn't Hillary Clinton, we'd be talking about the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, with no real drama to it. Yet, for some reason she's in a tight race in Iowa and New Hampshire with under two weeks to go. How does this happen again?

Advisers to Hillary Clinton, including former President Bill Clinton, believe that her campaign made serious miscalculations by forgoing early attacks on Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and failing to undercut his archliberal message before it grew into a political movement that has now put him within striking distance of beating her in Iowa and New Hampshire.

According to Democrats close to the Clintons and involved with her campaign, Mrs. Clinton and the former president are also unnerved by the possibility that Mr. Sanders will foment a large wave of first-time voters and liberals that will derail her in Iowa, not unlike Barack Obama’s success in 2008, which consigned Mrs. Clinton to a third-place finish. They have asked her advisers about the strength of the campaign’s data modeling and turnout assumptions in Iowa, given that her 2008 campaign’s predictions were so inaccurate.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. On the other hand, you are who you are. Hillary Clinton's Senate record was solidly within the mainstream of the Democratic Party, her First Lady tenure was amongst the most progressive we've seen. She served under the current Democratic President as his Secretary of State, and has been a strong defender of his record and initiatives the whole way. And yet, we're still stuck here:

“Hillary is a pragmatic progressive — she’s not an advocate,” said Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont, who last week campaigned in Iowa for Mrs. Clinton over his home-state senator Mr. Sanders. “She quietly pulls people together and gets things done. Even though that’s not in vogue right now, I think that’s what voters will want in the end.”

But Mrs. Clinton’s problems are broader than just her message: Opinion polls show that some Democrats and other voters continue to question her trustworthiness and whether she cares about their problems. Recent polls show that her once-formidable lead over Mr. Sanders in Iowa has all but vanished, while he is holding on to a slight lead over her in New Hampshire.

Right back in 2008, all over again. We're stuck arguing over whether or not she's authentic. Is it sexism? Is it puritan progressives? Is it a media that doesn't like her? We've exhausted all of these debates over the years, and we never quite come to a final answer. It may be all of the above. It may be none of the above. I don't know that it really matters. The bottom line is that she will have to beat back Bernie's momentum in these final weeks and win Iowa, or face another difficult primary contest. For whatever reason, it just can't be easy for her.