Bernie Sanders’s success so far shows the limitations of this approach. Sanders has grabbed on to a different area of the Obama legacy: His idealistic plea for radical change, regardless of how unlikely (or impossible) the goals might seem. He offers an excitement and inspiration that Clinton can’t quite convey. Nearly four in 10 Democrats say they support Sanders nationally, and the numbers are higher in Iowa in New Hampshire.

It makes perfect sense that the things that so bedeviled Beltway Democrats wouldn’t really concern ordinary voters. Whether the Washington critics are right or wrong that Obama is bad at controlling the levels of power, it’s not a day-to-day concern for most people who aren’t trying to wrangle bills. What’s more, the average Democrat may very well look at the Obama term and see a huge record of accomplishment. That argument took a while to take root within the chattering classes, but now it’s heard by everyone from Michael Grunwald to Andrew Sullivan to Ted Cruz. If Barack did that well, a liberal Democrat might surmise, why not try for more with Bernie? It’s the very reason that both Clinton and Sanders are competing to embrace Obama closer.

Complicating Sanders’s hug is Obama’s refusal to hug him back. Although the president has been adamant he won’t endorse in the Democratic primary, it’s hard not to read a new interview with Politico’s Glenn Thrush as a defense of Clinton. He starts out acknowledging the parallel:

Glenn Thrush: The events I was at in Iowa, the candidate who seems to be delivering [optimism] now is Bernie Sanders. President Obama: Yeah. Thrust: I mean, when you watch this, what do you—do you see any elements of what you were able to accomplish in what Sanders is doing? Obama: Well, there's no doubt that Bernie has tapped into a running thread in Democratic politics that says: Why are we still constrained by the terms of the debate that were set by Ronald Reagan 30 years ago?

And yet he he then adds, “What Hillary presents is a recognition that translating values into governance and delivering the goods is ultimately the job of politics, making a real-life difference to people in their day-to-day lives. I don't want to exaggerate those differences, though, because Hillary is really idealistic and progressive.” Later he questions whether Sanders can hold up during a long campaign: “I will say that the longer you go in the process, the more you’re going to have to pass a series of hurdles that the voters are going to put in front of you.”

The irony is that Obama is embracing both a critique of his presidency leveled by Democrats (that he’s unable to deliver the goods) and a critique of his candidacy leveled by Clinton in 2008 (that he isn’t ready and vetted). Still, it’s hard to claim to be the protege of a man who won’t claim you, and so Clinton—by virtue of her service to Obama’s administration, and the many Obama aides now working for her—has an easier task of it.