Dan Payne

Bernie is an impractical dreamer. Hillary has been bought by Wall Street. In a nutshell, that’s what each side says about the other as they campaign in New Hampshire, and those were the arguments they sharpened in their debate ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

The result is a foregone conclusion: Bernie Sanders will clobber Hillary Clinton. He’s had monster leads all week and was up by 31 points Thursday in a CNN/WMUR poll. Much of Sanders’ gargantuan margin comes from under-30 voters, who give him an 8-to-1 advantage in a tracking survey conducted by the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and NBC’s Boston affiliate.

Yep, that big.

A wise political friend once said of a candidate, “He describes like a lion but prescribes like a lamb.” That’s Sanders. He has a great, gutsy critique of America, Wall Street, capitalism, and wealth inequity, but his remedies are missing. It all comes down to an undefined “revolution,” with thousands of people, as he put it Thursday night, standing outside Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s window, demanding change. That’s simply naïve and only a campaign stuffed with idealistic young people would buy such a solution.

Nevertheless, Sanders speaks in simple, declarative sentences that assign blame, demand sweeping change, and pay no regard to practical or political reality. In the MSNBC debate Thursday night in Durham, his answer on a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees was direct: no one who supports the Citizens United campaign finance decision. Clinton’s answer was vague and did her no good. You could almost hear the gears in her head turning as she imagined what might happen to This One or That One whom she might nominate.

The problem for Clinton is that offering only what she thinks can pass an intractable Republican Congress stifles her idealism and makes her seem timid, not moderate. This is how she lost to Barack Obama and why she finds herself trailing another bold idealist named Sanders. Gradualism isn't compelling at time of voter anger and fear. She’s so much better than Sanders on foreign and military policy, she needs to push for at least one more debate just on those topics.

When he wins New Hampshire big, Sanders will surely party like it’s 1999. But he shouldn’t. The state has a relatively paltry 32 Democratic convention delegates. And his momentum will likely come to a screeching halt 11 days later, when 59 delegates are at stake in South Carolina’s Feb. 20 primary. Then come the Feb. 27 Nevada caucuses, with their 43 delegates. Nevada's population is 27.5% Latino; its African-American population 9%. In South Carolina, African-Americans comprise 27.8% of the population and Latinos 5.4%. Both minority groups heavily favor Clinton; it’s one of the few times she benefits from her marriage to Bill.

It’s Super Tuesday on March 1 that will decide this campaign. Fourteen states will vote in what’s been dubbed the SEC Primary, for the many states in it that belong to the Southeastern Conference. The date is in fact dominated by seven southern states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia – with diverse electorates. But also voting that day on the Democratic side are Sanders’ home state of Vermont plus Colorado, Massachusetts and Minnesota – places where he may be able to get traction. On March 1 alone, more than 1,000 Democratic delegates will be at stake.

As the campaign moves to Southern and less liberal states, Sanders may find Clinton emphasizing the costs of his pipe dreams, as she did in the debate. The Wall Street Journal – not exactly the Bible for Democrats – pegged the cost of his programs at $10 trillion over 10 years. It goes for Medicare for all, free government-paid college, and massive infrastructure rebuilding. And his promise to raise taxes “a little” to pay for universal health insurance won’t be greeted warmly in the South and the Rockies, even among Democrats.

But Clinton can't just criticize Sanders. Long before Super Tuesday, she and her advisers need to rethink her pitch. The only time she sounds charged up is when she talks about health care for children, freedom of choice on abortion, civil and LGBT rights, and pay equity for women. More passion and vision would make her more compelling in future debates, in press interviews, and in daily campaigning. Otherwise, regardless of what happens in New Hampshire, the Clinton-Sanders duel will go on and on.

Dan Payne is an analyst for NPR and WBUR radio and president of the Democratic strategy firm Payne & Co. of Boston. His political clients have included John Kerry and Edward Kennedy.