According to polling, Clinton still enjoys a comfortable, albeit shrinking, lead in the Democratic primary. Still, reports are that the Clinton campaign is getting nervous over the the fact that that the race is tightening and that Bernie Sanders has a real shot of winning the first two primary contests in Iowa and New New Hamsphire. If the Clinton campaign is hitting a rocky patch, the best explanation we have for why she hasn’t sealed the deal is from Ezra Klein. Writing in Vox, Klein argued, “The problem is Clinton doesn’t campaign the way she governs. She often seems scared to tell voters what she really thinks for fear they’ll disagree. Her knowledge of the painful trade-offs of governing can curdle into a paralyzing recognition of all the ways she could be attacked for taking a clear position.”
This distrust of voters manifests itself in many ways: in the misbegotten attacks on Sanders for supporting single-payer health care and in engineering a debate schedule with the DNC that seems designed to minimize viewership (the Sunday of a long weekend, opposite a football game and Downton Abbey). Democratic voters genuinely like Clinton; she has favourability ratings that are generally north of 80 percent among party members. Her big task is to prove that she likes them back, that she trusts them enough to talk to them like they are grown-ups.