Phil Reisman

preisman@lohud.com

Sporadic gusts of cold January wind were blowing from the northeast when the first evening rush-hour commuter train pulled into the Chappaqua station.

A small gaggle of young people gathered in the dimly lit overpass, unified in their support for the one man in America who must be giving Hillary Clinton a bad case of hives — Bernie Sanders.

Chappaqua has been Bill-and-Hillary Country ever since 1999, when the couple bought a comfortable domicile at 15 Old House Lane for $1.7 million and became the darlings of Westchester’s suburban Democratic establishment. “We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,” Hillary recalled years later, an oddly disconnected remark that garnered much less sympathy than ridicule.

So, in a manner of speaking, the Sanders volunteers were ensconced in the belly of the beast, which was the whole point.

As train after train pulled into the Chappaqua station, they enthusiastically handed out “Bernie 2016 For President” palm cards, their spirits buoyed by astonishing poll numbers showing Sanders ahead of Clinton by 8 percentage points in Iowa and 23 points in New Hampshire. More than a few of the off-loading commuters ignored them and briskly walked by, but many politely accepted the cards, which listed 18 tenets of the insurgent Sanders campaign — starting with raising the minimum wage to $15 and ending with “Break up the Big Banks.”

The “Bernistas” believe Clinton is out of touch with those living on the outer edges of wealth and power, people who feel disenfranchised. While Clinton’s demographics skew past the age of 45, the septuagenarian Sanders is practically a millennial folk hero.

Not long ago, a survey by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics showed that 41 percent of millennials said that they would vote for Sanders in a Democratic primary — that is if they decide to vote, and that is a big “if.” Meanwhile, 35 percent said they favored Clinton. That Sanders is a Democratic socialist doesn’t seem to deter his younger fans.

Other polls give similar results, which explains why the great Clinton ship has been tacking to port.

Sarah Aftergood, a recent college graduate from New Rochelle, said Sanders has a deep understanding of the unique social and economic problems facing a generation that grew up during the Great Recession. His policy prescriptions of free college tuition, universal health care and pay equity resonate with them — even if it means substantially raising taxes.

“All these things you hear about, he wants to fix,” said Aftergood, 22. “And not by playing by the system, but going above and beyond and redefining it as government for the people.”

Michelle Castañeda, a 28-year-old, Yale graduate who is currently working toward a doctorate at Brown University, said Clinton’s presidential candidacy is far from inevitable.

“You can’t underestimate Bernie’s power here in New York, or anywhere in the country,” Castañeda said. His backers, she said, have unbridled passion while Clinton suffers from an “enthusiasm gap.”

“People who support Hillary are at best tepid about their support,” she said. “They say she waffles on important issues; They say that she’s a political opportunist.”

Castañeda called the former secretary of state a “technocratic incrementalist,” defined as someone who toys with small bits of policy initiatives and piles on “compromise upon compromise until you basically have nothing.”

Ouch. If that doesn’t make Hillary “feel the Bern,” nothing will.

Aftergood and Castañeda were with a half-dozen other Sanders volunteers at the train station — all of whom were in their 20s, except for the “Westchester4Bernie” field coordinator, Roger Fox, who is 57.

Fox, who lives in Harrison, is a veteran organizer of political campaigns. He describes himself as an “FDR Democrat” and a “policy wonk.”

“I’m the kind of person who’s read every Social Security trustees report since 2004, and I’ve probably looked at most of them going back to ’85,” he said. “I’m a little anal, but I have the ability to look at these data points and turn them into the big picture.”

Fox insists he is not exaggerating when he says there are 30,000 registered Sanders volunteers in Westchester — though about 200 are active. He personally designed the palm cards, which were printed by Aligraphics in West Harrison at a cost of $467.08, raised in two weeks through online donations. “I’ve got 9,000 of them in my car,” he said.

To date, his Sanders group has made three forays into Clinton’s hometown, an affluent hamlet where the median household income of $105,439 is about twice that of Iowa.

“We intend to prove that she’s not strong in her backyard,” he said.

Fox expressed confidence that Sanders would get the Democratic nomination, despite the long odds set by the pundits, the unofficial bookies of the political horse race. On Monday, he will organize a phone bank in Harrison to help get the vote out in Iowa. Castañeda said she, for one, planned to be there.

The heat is on.