By late April 2000, Vice President Al Gore was thumping his liberal challenger Bill Bradley with 70 or 80 percent of the vote in most primary states. That same time four years later, the tent hosting Howard Dean’s populist revival had been folded for two months.

In late April 2016, Bernie Sanders is even in national polls with a former First Lady of the United States, senator, top vote-getter in a presidential nominating contest and secretary of state. And that’s just one person. Hillary Clinton is a formidably experienced politician with universal name recognition who has the opportunity to become the first female commander-in-chief. She hasn’t been able to shake a “septuagenarian socialist” who half the country had never heard of 15 months ago.