Excerpt from Maureen Dowd’s 2.6 N.Y. Times column, “Hillary Battles Bernie Sanders, Chick Magnet”:

“In 2008 Hillary was running against the Tulip Craze Barack Obama. Now she’s running against a grumpy gramps, a stooped socialist with a narrow message, brusque manner and shaky grasp of world affairs.

“And she’s still not likable enough for the young women who were supposed to carry her forward as a Joan of Arc. According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, Sanders won among young men and women in Iowa by 70 points. And in New Hampshire, going into the weekend, polls showed him leading with women, racking up yawning margins with women under 45 and with both sexes under 30.

“Hillary is traveling around New Hampshire with a former president who could easily layer in some poetry, and a handful of specific snappy plans for the future, to her thicket of substance and stack of white papers. But somehow, Hill and Bill campaign side by side without achieving synergy. Is it that he’s as tired as he looks or does she feel too competitive with him to ask for that kind of help?

“As one Hillary booster in Hollywood marveled: ‘There’s no chance her husband doesn’t understand the problem. The look on his face during her speeches evokes a retired major league All Star watching his son strike out in a Little League game. This is so fixable.’

“Hillary is like a veteran actor who doesn’t audition well. Bill could tell her not to shout her way through rallies, that it doesn’t convey passion but just seems forced, adding to her authenticity problem. Even after all this time watching Bill and Barry, she still has not learned the art of seduction on stage.

“Sanders’s populist surge — he raised $20 million last month, $5 million more than Hillary — has led some top Democrats to wonder if President Obama will have to step in and endorse her.

“Wouldn’t that be rich? The Wellesley idealist-turned-realist needs the Chicago idealist-turned-realist who beat her last time to save her from the Vermont idealist clinging to a simple reality: Wall Street fleeced America and none of the big shots got punished.”