well, okay, someone wants to rumble, we'll spice it up.

It's rather whiny and unrealistic to think that Hillary wouldn't have a huge leap on most any candidate unless they were exciting, electable fresh blood. But there ain't. A bunch of 70-year-olds with a threat of another 70-year old jumping in as "excitement"?

She looked pretty good 8 years ago but barely lost, did her time, and she's still standing and this time she nailed down the endorsements, policy positions, donations + PAC, the 50-state game, lots of things she screwed up last time. & you think the reward is to be smeared with "Inevitable 2.0"?

If I recall correct, Corporate Media has played up both the Bernie rallies and pushed hard on Joe Biden to enter. Maybe you and Jim Webb can get together to file a complaint about lack of exposure, but I remember the days when 3 debates was considered quite enough - the only reason to have more than 6 debates is just hoping someone will obviously flub & burn out through repeated exposure.

Maybe Bernie is doing better than Obama at this time, but it's a false equivalence. First, Obama was a rising star at the 2004 convention, next-gen stuff. And you can go to Wikipedia to see all the then competitive candidates and possibles - there was no early lockup with that slate. Howard Dean who invented the internet campaigning model, Bill Richardson - up-and-coming Hispanic demographic, Biden, Edwards, Chris Dodd, Wesley Clark - our clumsy but serious-about-security guy... some unexcitement in that bunch, but 8 years earlier were still a bit fresh. Hillary *won* the popular vote in 2008 - over 18 million people already voted for her *for President*. Since she didn't burn out and a lot of people still think of her as the strongest contender by far - she certainly has the most name recognition, is already quite familiar to 50 states that already voted for her. Jesse Jackson did quite a bit better his second run - why would you think Hillary would lose her momentum, having kept busy with her stint at State and no one else new coming along?

You also ignore the difference between the black/minority-vs-female blocs in 2008 that now is simply the glass ceiling for women.  There's nothing really personal to draw in with Bernie. And you saw how well the media covered Operation Wall Street, which is pretty much the demographic supporting Bernie. Why do you expect it to be different? It's a fairly conservative country - predicting a socialist revolution is a long-shot, to be kind.

In terms of fund-raising, Hillary's also doing much better - including both PACs and campaign contributions, which is how the game's played. She has about twice the funding, and that's likely to kick in big over the next few weeks. Since Hillary spent nearly a half billion dollars on campaigning in 2008, and most of those voters are still alive, you can count much of that towards her 2016 messaging and awareness campaign. Sure, Bernie may get more bang for his buck with volunteer organizers, but that only goes so far, and TV is still a major force in opinions, and that's costly.

This time as well, the "coronation" seems to have been Hillary handling herself well at the debates, with a lot of people holding off opinion until then. These are measures of merit, not a gift, unless you think the moderators gave her too soft questions or something, but Bernie did get a chance to speak. Along with the revelation from 3 GOP sources that the Benghazi panel was a witchhunt, which makes Hillary somewhat of a Democratic martyr - for herself & as a symbol of Obama's administration. (I guess we can call Joan of Arc's burning a coronation of sorts as well. - snark)

Meanwhile, the press is continually bashing her forever not being "authentic" and being "calculating" and never waste a chance to bring up Monica along with Benghazi & email and a fake NY Times scandal about uranium & Bill's charity with a supermodel's charity a few months back... - perhaps Bernie's lucky if they don't talk about him.

Ignore the polls, but the polls certainly hold some value in terms of what the public knows at this time. Trends are as important. There's 3 months to New Hampshire, but we don't see Bernie breaking away from the pack there, unlike his earlier gains, and that's his home turf where he owns the ground game. Biden's exit will quite likely favor her. The next 5 debates could help him, but he has to pray for Hillary to whiff. She might, if she goes too careful say, but she's got a lot more experience in the limelight, including now Benghazi, so don't expect many rookie mistakes.

You might not like Hillary, but for me she's the only Democrat who can tell Republicans to shove it up their ass and make it stick, and having accepted I'll always have problems at policy level, I'm pretty comfortable that she ticks the boxes at more than 75%, along with the organizational & backroom skills to actually get things done (e.g. executive skills & legislative wrangling and hard-nose negotiating without giving away the store, and not pissing away her presidency on an intern/young professional scandal).

People have been trying to get corporations out of politics since the Founding Fathers. It's not happening anytime soon. Bush made it worse, Obama's first months were horrid with the bailouts, and the Supreme Court put several nails in the coffin like Citizens United. (it's ironic to remember that Citizens United was about the freedom of unlimited money to attack Hillary in videos outside of FEC limits. The right does keep coming for her).

More than electing Bernie or Lessig, we need an actual 50-state Democratic strategy like Howard Dean tried and that Obama & Rahm Emmanuel shut down. So instead of a broad party, we have a tenuous 1-office hold on influence. Maybe when Bernie loses he can effectively organize at the grass roots level so in 8-12 years, the needed legislative power will be there to affect policy at both state & national level, policies that maybe you won't have to hold your nose to support.