Dispatches from the front tell of Bernie Sanders surging into the lead in the New Hampshire polls. From the time he began what was then viewed as a quixotic campaign for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination, Sanders’s chances have been laughed off and his successes explained away. He is, after all, not even a Democrat. Which, come to think of it, might count solidly in his favor with many voters, not a few of whom are Democrats.

It might be tempting to write off Sanders’s good numbers in New Hampshire as owing to the fact that the state shares a border with Vermont, Sanders’s home turf. But a lot more than the Connecticut River separates Vermont from New Hampshire, where they still occasionally elect a Republican. In Vermont, Republicans are an endangered species, though the many and manifold blunders of the Democrats – most conspicuously a failure to pass single-payer health care – have improved the Republicans chances of survival. Hope for much more than that, however, is chimerical.