One serious question for moderate Democrats.

[Hortensis]

12. The ERA in which they worked must be considered in evaluating their

performances. We are still coming out of the strongly conservative Reaganism-to-Tea-Party-Economic Libertarian era that began in the late 1970s, a transition I suspect is being prolonged by the corrupting, directing influence of Big Money in politics.

In any case, one could not expect a democratic socialist to have risen to real prominence in either party in this era. The mood of the nation was all wrong. He gets points from most in being in Congress at all and now in having successfully raised the torch passed by Elizabeth Warren. Seems to me we can't really evaluate his ability to lead yet, depending as it does on the wish of Americans to be lead, still to be demonstrated, but it's clearly at least somewhat stronger than his obscurity suggested just a few months ago.

I'm another who really does not like Hillary's constant chasing survival positions right past the middle into the right during this era, but again, the positions she took would have been pretty consistently left-to-moderate in a more liberal era, which is the environment in which the next president governs looks like it will be