For the second time in eight years, Hillary Clinton sees the Democratic nomination being pawed by a charming interloper, like a priceless vase grabbed by a panda. She’d prefer to shoot the panda, but that could mean breaking the vase, and onlookers would object. To make matters worse, Bernie Sanders, who leads Clinton in both New Hampshire and Iowa, has produced a new video ad, “America,” a wordless feel-hope montage that is awfully good, good enough that I can’t help feeling both moved by it and resentful that it works on me. Maybe shoot the panda.

How does Hillary come back? Back in 2008, many of us thought she was a solid candidate who just happened to be meeting her match in an exceptional one. As Hendrik Hertzberg, who’d called Clinton’s talents “immense,” summarized in The New Yorker, “Barack Obama is a phenomenon that comes along once in a lifetime. Unfortunately for Hillary, it’s her lifetime.” But maybe Hillary is really a not-so-solid candidate who happens to meet her match in anyone answering to “Other.”

Let’s assume the poll numbers hold and she loses Iowa and New Hampshire. In the worst-case scenario, a few weeks of Sanders victories will change the momentum of the race irrevocably, inspiring voters in blue states to follow their hearts. And the heart doesn’t lead to Hillary Clinton, unless you’re Lanny Davis. Maybe best to regain control soon.

She can try campaigning harder on “judgment,” but Iraq will always undercut that message. She can say that competence and experience count for more than soaring rhetoric and grand visions—and she believes it—but that would mean insulting a sitting president whom Democratic voters still deeply admire. She can hope to keep her opponents out of the spotlight with debates scheduled at inconvenient times, except that the Democratic National Committee did just that for her and it backfired. That’s why we’re seeing a “town hall” on Monday. She could try deploying charm, but that’s like Bernie Sanders deploying a thick head of hair.

Let’s take a closer look at kneecapping, a solid standby. In 2008, the Clinton campaign fanned outrage over Obama’s church pastor, hammered Obama on ties to former terrorist Bill Ayers, and even circulated a picture of Obama being dressed as a Somali elder during a trip to Kenya. But these things soured many Democrats on Clinton. This cycle, her campaign has been more restrained, using proxies to remind people that Sanders is a socialist, allege that Bernie would take away our healthcare (leave it to Chelsea to make Hillary look like a political natural), and suggest his “America” ad is racist because of excessive whiteness. But even these low-key attacks have been busts. They’re bound to be. When you’re caught up in a beautiful dream, you don’t want to be woken up and told it’s nonsense, least of all by Hillary Clinton.

What does that leave? More than one might think. Despite the challenges, Hillary wins by not panicking. Certainly, after an inevitable New Hampshire triumph, Sanders will shoot up in the polls, and Hillary’s lead in most states will shrink a lot. (It’s already fallen by half in South Carolina.) But after a couple of grueling weeks, the air will quietly start to leak from the Sanders tire. Bernie is unlikely to inspire anything close to the support that Obama got among Southern black voters in 2008, and most non-New-England states that preferred Hillary in 2008 will still prefer her now. So my guess is she’ll take a narrow but persistent lead across most of the country, winning steadily, if slowly. She’ll take the South, including South Carolina, Florida, and Texas. She’ll take New York, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and California. And she won’t neglect the caucus states, where she was so embarrassingly outplayed in 2008. She’ll come out fine, if she plays it cool. (And if the continuing investigation into her use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state doesn’t land her in more serious trouble.)