Old School Cool

Bernie Sanders continues to lead big-time in the Granite State, hours before the voting begins in New Hampshire. He is up by double-digits despite a ferocious comeback attempt by Hillary Clinton.

The biggest source of the senator’s strength is undoubtedly the millennial generation, roughly those from college age to early 30’s. So why? The first answer is free stuff. These young people are loaded by college loan debt that is unsupportable and un-payback-able.

The Vermont socialist promises to provide free college tuition, free healthcare for all, and free access to a wide array of government services and benefits, whether earned or not. The fact that he would bankrupt the country if his reforms were enacted is not relevant to 24-year olds graduating with a B average from a B-rated school indebted by $200,000 or $300,000 that is due six months after graduation.

Senator Sanders also promises to stop climate change in its tracks, regardless of any complications like national economies or equity. He also promises to stop Wall Street excesses and to level life's playing field.

Unnoticed is his utter lack of practical details on how to pay for stuff. He wants to break up banks that are too big to fail, and stop the corrosive influence of cash from companies like Goldman Sachs, which implies that Hillary Clinton is on the take. But he never addresses such practical issues as his utter inability to pass the necessary legislation to enact those lofty goals.

Those are the specific reasons why entreaties from old school feminists like my friend Gloria Steinem and former ambassador Madeline Albright are falling on deaf ears. Hillary is way too practical. She actually proposes dreams that are supportable by affordable taxes. She is not “Hope and Change.” She’s more, “Ease the Pain.”

Hillary has also been hurt by the unrelenting attacks against her by the GOP on phony issues like the Benghazi attacks and the email scandalette.

But hurting her most of all among the young voters is that Bernie is old school cool, like Tony Bennett and Mick Jagger are old school cool. Bernie is five years older than Hillary chronologically, but he is way younger in spirit.