1. It’s Tuesday, December 29, 2015.

2. Hope you had a merry Christmas, a happy Boxing Day (for the British, Canadian and Australians among you) and a good first few days of Kwanzaa. We’re only two days away from New Year’s Eve and less than three from 2016.

3. I was hoping we could go a whole winter without any white precipitation. Alas, here in New York’s northern suburbs, we’re looking as some grey-white slushy stuff on the ground this morning, and it’s still dripping something. The good news is it’s not ice – it’s still too warm for that, and will have a minimal impact on activities by this afternoon.

4. One thing we should be grateful for is that the first presidential votes are still a month away. It was 2008 that Iowa and New Hampshire decided to try to one up each other by having their contests right around New Year’s. The holidays should be downtime for everyone, including voters considering their presidential choice. Yes, Trump is belching away, but he probably has nothing else to do – can you imagine the warmth and loving that goes into a Trump family Christmas?

5. The New York Times is celebrating the apparent defeat of the Islamic State in Ramadi by Iraqi forces. And, to be fair, anytime the Daesh (a better term than ISIS or ISIL, since these people don’t like it) lose, it’s a victory for the human race.

But while an editorial cautiously trumpets the success of the American strategy in Ramadi, a news story on the NYT home page reminds us of how daunting this region of the world is. The story tells of the re-emergence of al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. It was, after all, al-Qaeda that attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, with the protection of the Taliban.

Of course, the fact al-Qaeda isn’t finished off is a subsidiary outcome from the idiocy of the Iraq War. But if President Obama, who’s had to try to undo the damage done by that war, doesn’t dwell publicly on the frustration, neither should we. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that the administration’s policy in the region will continue to make progress, without the commitment of a massive U.S. military force, and that his successor won’t be one of these jump-up-and-down cowboys anxious to show how tough they are.

1. It’s Christmas Eve.

2. For some reason, Handel’s “Messiah” gets all the buzz at the holidays. And, don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful work.

But when it comes to Christmas choral masterpieces, I’m all in on Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio.” It proclaims the holiday with amazing flourishes. I feel as though it’s the official sound of Christmas.

Yes, I realize it’s in German. That detracts not one note from its brilliance.

I don’t understand why it’s almost never performed live in the United States. When I tried to find a live performance, the closest appeared to be in London.

3. Believe it or not, I was going to do a political rant tonight. I had a clever “Yes, Virginia, there is a war on Christmas” lead that would have said something about the fact that the war on the spirit of Christmas is being waged by people who say they’re offended when someone wishes them “Happy holidays!”

But Christmas is a powerful force. And when you get to the quiet of Christmas Eve, and the reflection on all that is good in your life and all that you wish for those you care about, the pettiness, the sniping, the rigidity all seem silly.

Instead, there is calm and joy. The fact that I’m with my wife and my children, who I re-realize are the best gifts I’ll ever receive. That I’ve seen all the lights again, and heard the great music, and eaten better than I should. That my friends are enjoying this holiday with their families around the world.

There’s also wistfulness. There are friends and family absent from this night, people who I would conjure if I could, to stand or sit here and talk and laugh and be part of my life for one more night. I try as hard as I can to make them reappear and I come so close.

4. I’m thinking about one person in particular tonight.

In 1976, I was trying to get a full-time job as a broadcast writer for the Associated Press, and was on a roster of part-time substitutes called the “variables.” Someone called in sick for the night shift on Dec. 24, and I was called. Accepting it would mean missing Christmas Eve, the greatest night in my family’s year. And yet, I did it. I thought – wisely, as it turned out – that it might turn into the job I wanted.

It was hard because I didn’t really know the staff that was working. But I slugged it out and it was just past 11.

That’s when the sports writer that night, an older guy – he was all of 46 then – was getting ready to catch the last bus to his home in the Jersey suburbs. But before he did, he walked around the room. He shook hands with everyone in it, asked how they and their families were celebrating the holiday, and wished them a Merry Christmas. That everyone included me, someone he had never met until that night, and who was amazed that someone would take the time to care about my holiday.

The man’s name was Marv Schneider. He died earlier this year. He was Jewish and, if asked, would say he didn’t celebrate Christmas.

But he did. He gave comfort and cheer to his colleagues on a special night. And his gifts, his kindness, his friendship and his wit, lasted longer that anything else I received that holiday. They live tonight in my heart, and I feel as though I came oh, so, close to bringing him back.

So tonight, as I get ready for a busy Christmas Day, I’m thinking of Marv and my grandfather and my Aunt Fran and lots of other people – living or otherwise. I’m seeing their smiles and enjoying the sounds of their voice and hoping at this moment, wherever they are, whatever they believe, with whomever else they’re spending this time, that they are happy and at peace. I miss the ones I can’t see again, smile at the prospect that I can see the others again sometime, and know that that’s what Christmas means to me.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. To all my friends and family, whether they celebrate tonight or not, peace, love, happiness and a kind handshake.

1. It’s Tuesday, December 22, 2015.

2. News organizations and weather people who talk about dashed hopes for a white Christmas are idiots.

Entranced by perhaps the most overrated holiday song, they see the glistening white of snow around Central Park or a community church as the symbol of a perfect Christmas Day. So they go on the air or write that there will be people in the eastern U.S. disappointed this year because of temperatures well above normal.

They’re not.

Here’s reality: Most people must travel somewhere to spend Christmas Day with the ones they love. It could be a couple of miles, it could be across the ocean. And with that many people traveling, there are already enough obstacles without roads being treacherous or flights being cancelled because it’s snowing.

Ask people who have been stranded in airports how wonderful a white Christmas is. Ask people standing on the side of a snowy road after skidding into the car ahead of them if they notice the treetops glisten.

Is a snowscape on Christmas morning prettier than looking at brownish ground and leafless trees? Perhaps. But you know what’s a lot prettier than a snowscape? Looking into the eyes of parents and children and siblings and friends and anyone else we care about on Christmas Day, realizing at that moment that you are safe together, and that nothing is better.

It will be 70 degrees here in New York on Christmas Eve. That’s a Christmas gift I’m not exchanging.

3. If Trump thinks Hillary Clinton going to a bathroom offstage is disgusting, does that mean he supports the idea of wearing a loaded diaper during the debates? Wonder if he knows first hand.

1. It’s Monday, December 21, 2015.

2. It’s the first day of winter, just making it in under the bell at 11:48 p.m., according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. That means it’s 91 days until spring, and that’s what I start counting beginning today. Although the fact that it’s supposed to be in the 60s later this week in New York mitigates some of the gloom.

3. Can anyone explain why running down people on a Las Vegas sidewalk on purpose isn’t terrorism?

4. Steve Harvey’s mistake is karma. I’ll bet accidentally saying the runner-up is the winner happens a lot in livestock competitions at county fairs. Of which “beauty pageants” are the equivalent.

5. The Democrats might have clinched the presidential election if they had staged the debate they had Saturday night 72 hours earlier. The contrast between the discussion among the three Democrats and the gloom-and-doom fest of the Republicans on Tuesday night was beyond stark.

There were the occasional raised voice exchanges — I’m not sure Sen. Sanders can speak in any voice other than loud. But there was civility that was unimaginable at the Republican debate. Even the flap over the Sanders campaign tapping into Clinton campaign data was handled quietly and defused professionally – except by Martin O’Malley, who was determined to give that prepared spiel about what’s wrong with his opponents even though they had already resolved their problem.

To be sure, Clinton and Sanders have differences in approach. Sanders took pains to point them out — on Syria and ISIS, on dealing with Wall Street. But there was nothing approaching the degree of personal rancor that we saw Tuesday night. Trump vs. Bush. Rubio vs. Cruz. Christie vs. Paul. Trump vs. Paul. Hell, Trump vs. everyone except maybe Carson and Cruz, who seemed to be kissing Trump’s rear while trying to take him down.

There’s a part of me – call me a stubborn idealist – who believes that the ability to solve problems rationally and through consensus is a qualification for President. In the Republican Party of 2016, it seems like a disqualification.

A couple of other quick thoughts from the debate:

— Hillary Clinton tries really hard to conduct herself like a President. She’s gotten good at it. She’s smart and she’s quick – in some ways, she reminds me more of President Obama than her husband – and she never backs down. When ABC’s Martha Raddatz pursued an almost prosecutorial style of questioning on Libya, the former Secretary of State refused to buckle There’s a part of me that thinks that was planned – Clinton wanting a real-time test of her ability under pressure for when that happens with a Republican on the stage.

— Bernie Sanders staying in this race is the best thing that could happen to the Democrats. Hillary Clinton will win the nomination easily. But Sanders lets Democrats on the left vent about the issues they care about most. He’s a great voice for that – even if he does sound like Larry David sometimes. And if Democrats on the left feel they’ve been heard – and even see some of their ideas make it into the Clinton general election campaign – it will make it easier for them to be enthusiastic about her race against the Republican in the fall.

— There was a moment that should have cheered Democrats and given notice to the Republicans. It was when Martin O’Malley, who just seemed thrown off by the other two, went after them on gun control, saying Sanders wasn’t tough enough against the gun lobby and Clinton flip-flopped on the issue. At that point, Sanders and Clinton teamed up on the hapless O’Malley. Sanders began the process of ripping him, and then he let Clinton finish it off. O’Malley, so full of piss and vinegar a minute earlier, was left to hang there. It was pathetic for him, but glorious for Democrats who can imagine Sanders on the campaign trail with Clinton taking the case to the Republicans.

.

It’s December 18, 2015 and time for Friday Yes or No. I ask myself great questions. I give blunt answers. I demonstrate some sort of wit and wisdom in the process.

Q1: Did anyone expect you to do a Friday Yes or No next Friday, Christmas Day?

A1: No

Q2: Have you gotten over the dark cloud of doom that was the most recent Republican presidential debate?

A2: No

Q3: Do you think Chris Christie is aware yet that he plans to meet with a Jordanian king who’s been dead for 16 years and that the threat to bomb Los Angeles’ schools was a hoax?

A3: No

Q4: Are you happy for newsroom friends who, thanks to today’s votes in Congress, won’t have to spend the holidays worried about a government shutdown?

A4: Yes

Q5: Doesn’t Martin Shkreli seem like the type of guy you want to punch in the nose on first sight?

A5: Yes

Q6: And yet, does it bother you that none of the charges against him have to do with price gouging on life-saving drugs?

A6: Yes

Q7: President Obama is trying to reassure Americans that they are safe this Christmas time. Can he really do that?

A7: No

Q8: Is that because we have no idea what a single nut case like the ones in Colorado Springs or San Bernardino will do?

A8: Yes

Q9: But, generally speaking, when the President says he’s doing all he can to keep Americans safe, do you believe him?

A9: Yes

Q10: And do you think he’s been weak and ineffectual against terrorists?

A10: No

Q11: Has this been a tough year?

A11: Yes

Q12: Are you glad it’s over?

A12: Yes

Q13: Are you looking for to writing about things that matter to people in 2016?

A13: Yes

Q14: Do you wish folks a happy holiday today?

A14: No

Q15: Is that because you plan to write next week?

A15: Yes

1. It’s Thursday, December 17, 2015.

2. It’s Beethoven’s 245th birthday. Today’s Google Doodle is one of the best distractions I’ve seen in a long time.

3. One more thought about Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate:

I’m not sure if this is CNN’s problem or the candidates’, but I don’t understand why there was no question about whether the easy availability of assault weapons is a threat to the nation’s security. It’s been a topic for awhile, and especially after the killings at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs and the Inland Resource Center in San Bernardino.

Ted Cruz, when he wasn’t trying to talk well past when Wolf Blitzer told him his time was up, kept digging at President Obama by saying he wasn’t going after terrorists while trying to deprive law-abiding Americans of their rights. That was his code phrase for appealing to the gun nuts who love this eaf.

That idea was never questioned. I guess it would not be brought up by the other Republican candidates, who either agree with Cruz or shriver at confronting the gun lobby.

That’s a shame, because San Bernardino and Colorado Springs prove that perhaps the biggest terrorist attack doesn’t need to be planned in Raqqa or Mosul. It can start with a sulking guy driving past Cabela’s.

4. It’s been a long time since I’ve typed the words “The Fed raised interest rates.” It did that yesterday for the first time in nearly a decade, having kept them at virtually zero in an attempt to mitigate and recover from the financial crisis.

There are reasons to raise rates – concern about inflation and a strong dollar being the primary one. There are reasons to keep rates low – this recovery has clearly not been felt by everyone hurt in the Great Recession.

Here’s why I’m for it. At some point, the United States has to get out of the mindset of being in crisis. Confidence is as much a part of the economy as the actual nuts and bolts of money supply and interest rates. It’s time to move out of recovery mode and into a phase when we start thinking about how we’re going to grow in a steady, sustainable way.

The Times’ Peter Eavis points out two things that I find interesting. One is that the federal government failed to take advantage of almost interest-free money to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. That’s a political calculation – Republicans don’t see the idea of collapsing bridges and rail tunnels as a problem to be solved by government.

But there’s no indication that anything will change if we keep rates low. And maybe by raising them, projects with a sense of urgency might get launched.

The other thing Eavis points out is that low interest rates have protected bad businesses by just allowing them to roll money over instead of forcing them to make improvements. Most businesses haven’t invested in development since interest rates hit near zero – that also would not change if rates stayed low.

The rising interest rates, if Janet Yellen and the Fed do this right, will not thwart real growth, but will keep badly run businesses from protecting themselves with zero percent loans.

In a few months, when we start seeing the jobs growth reports, we’ll know if the Fed is right.

1. It’s Wednesday, December 16, 2015.

2. Watched the Republican debate last night. Two-plus hours of gloom, doom, name-calling, snarling, voice-raising, eye rolling (that would be Trump), disrespecting the moderator and the other candidates by talking well beyond the time limit (that would be Cruz), and other assorted displays of distemper.

Here are some quick takes from last night:

— If I had to pick a winner from among the losers, I would say it was Marco Rubio. He was under attack more than anyone not named Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but he maintained his poise and stayed pretty much on point. On a stage full of negativity, he occasionally fired up the inspirational stuff that gets voters excited. As a Democrat, I would fear him as the Republican candidate more than any of these others, because I think he could actually win.

— John Kasich also tried to be positive. But there’s something disconnected about his message. It’s really unclear what he’s for except, perhaps, being nicer to people who disagree with him.

— Chris Christie’s big problem with Republicans is that he’s still seen as having consorted with the enemy when he toured the Sandy-ravaged parts of his state with the reviled Barack Obama. Hence the fact that Christie was the most venomous about the President, practically spitting out his name every time he said it. There are some indications that Christie could be the moderate who emerges from the first votes in Iowa and New Hampshire. We’ll see.

— Jeb Bush never convinces me, or anyone else apparently, that he wants to be President. Maybe it’s projection, but I think he’s running to make his father happy. He’s trying to uphold the family name. That’s why Trump bothers him so much.

— I did not see the debate that Carly Florina supposedly won a few months ago. She didn’t win anything last night. She snarled the whole night and offered little more than the idea that she ran a company and this isn’t much different.

— It’s hard to decide who I would never want to have dinner with – it’s a tossup between Ted Cruz and Trump. These are two guys so full of themselves that it’s amazing anyone else was able to fit into that auditorium in Las Vegas. The way Cruz was determined to talk past Wolf Blitzer’s exhortation to stop – I don’t even remember the point anymore – was scary and depressing. If he’s not listening to Wolf, he’s not listening to anyone else either.

— Trump. His facial expressions and churlish rejoinders alone are what keep people watching these debates. You never know when he’s going to insult the hell out of Bush or Lindsay Graham or whoever else ticks him off. That must be what people with no sense of propriety love about him. What you can hate about him, of course, is his complete disrespect for people who aren’t male and Caucasian. He doubled down on the anti-Muslim rhetoric and reminded us that he’s not crazy about Latin Americans either.

3. It’s the nature of the initial part of the nominating process for candidates to talk to the party’s base. Last night’s debate certainly wasn’t for my benefit – I’m a lost-cause Democrat to them.

But it also wasn’t for the benefit of anyone who’s genuinely undecided as 2016 rolls around. It was an appeal to the party faithful, the Republicans who will actually schlep to caucus sites in Iowa just 47 days from now or polls in New Hampshire a few days later.

That’s the opening for Hillary Clinton. She’s got the Democratic nomination. Sanders and O’Malley can help her shape her message to the general electorate.

If she can do that – start to appeal to those who aren’t sure about their vote while the Republicans are deep-diving in the muck for their base – it will give her a big head start when the time comes to face the GOP survivor next fall.

1. It’s Tuesday, December 15, 2015.

2. George Washington died 216 years ago today. He had caught a cold and it just got worse over a couple of days. This sounds weird to us now, and perhaps Bill O’Reilly will fabricate one of his “history” books telling how the Father of Our Country was murdered.

Washington was only 67 years old, although I suspect that was thought of as a long life in 1799.

3. Some idiots attempted to desecrate a mosque in California over the weekend. They did it by scrawling “JESUS” on fences surrounding the grounds.

The Jesus they’re referring to is the same guy who’s venerated as a prophet in Islam. It’s a little like spray-painting “JOHN THE BAPTIST” on the side of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

It’s wrong and it’s ugly, but you’re not insulting the faith. You’re just displaying your complete ignorance to the rest of the world.

4. Speaking of idiots who try to trash Muslims, tonight’s Republican presidential debate should be interesting.

You can bet – and being in Las Vegas, you’ll hear that verb a lot – that questions about Trump’s statements on Muslims will come up. What people will be watching for is whether Trump tries to back away from those remarks by saying the losers in the news media took his words out of context. Or will he double down (again with the Vegas stuff) and say people are overreacting to what he thinks are his sensible ideas for keeping the country safe?

The debate will also be an opportunity for the other candidates to try to distinguish themselves as somewhat less crazy alternatives to Trump. Except, of course, for Ted Cruz, who is trying to show he is the equally crazy alternative.

It should be interesting.

5. When Edward R. Murrow ended his famous broadcast about the tactics of Sen. Joe McCarthy, he quoted from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” McCarthy, Murrow said, didn’t create the fear that was sweeping America, he merely exploited it. “The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves,” Murrow said.

I was reminded of this during the weekend. On Friday, USA Today published a wonderful op-ed piece by my friend and former colleague Shaheen Pasha. She wrote of how her eight-year-old son was frightened by the talk from Trump of registering Muslims and barring their entry into the U.S. Were they going to force him and his family to leave their beautiful hometown and the life they’ve created? Trump had replaced the usual bogeymen in her young son’s mind.

Since then, Ms. Pasha has tried to keep a lower profile. She’s read the crazy comments that accompanied her story about how her son was just going to join ISIS anyway. And she’d heard word that were trolls about looking for images of her and her family online that could be used to shame or embarrass them.

As was the case with McCarthy, Trump isn’t saying something that others with less of a megaphone don’t already think. He’s just exploiting it – to him, it’s all part of the art of the deal.

To Muslim kids who are hearing more slurs than usual thanks to the Trump phenomenon, it’s heartbreaking and scary, and we can only hope it’s not also embittering.

And for no good reason. Our country is addicted to anger, and as long as pushers like Trump are around, and we can’t break it cold turkey, we’re stuck in a very bad place.

The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.

1. It’s Monday, December 14, 2015.

2. People around here are uneasy about the unseasonably warm December. Is this a bargain with the devil of global warming?

I doubt it. There have been warm Decembers before. When I was 10, it was 72 degrees on Christmas Day. That was 1964, and it was so warm that I remember it 51 years later.

I’m just going to enjoy it. You should too. The way climate change manifests itself is through the violent changes in weather that seem more frequent. That can include big snowstorms, which we haven’t had yet. Thankfully.

3. I always like to think about who Time’s Person of the Year and Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year will be. I was wrong both times, but I have no beef with either choice.

Last week, Time picked Angela Merkel for the distinction (reminder to the idiot Trump: it’s not an award), citing her steadiness in the face of Europe’s economic and refugee crises.

Today, it was announced that Serena Williams is SI’s Sportsperson of the Year. I was thinking Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, and I don’t think anyone can argue that he shouldn’t have been a candidate.

Here’s the thing: SI’s Sportsperson is an honor, because sportsperson implies not only triumph but also a certain level of doing things the right way. Working hard. Being a fierce competitor.

And being gracious in victory and being gracious in defeat. Even when that defeat is crushing – as was the case at Flushing Meadow, when Williams’ bid for tennis’ grand slam was thwarted by an unheralded Italian.

By all accounts, Serena Williams checked all the boxes. Big time. She is not only the best tennis player of this era, she may well be the best tennis player of all time. And she’s playing great at an age when tennis players are usually tired out. SI did OK.

4. Let’s hear it for the French for rejecting stupidity.

A month ago, a bunch of nut cases terrorized Paris, killing at least 130 people. Shortly after, in the first round of regional elections, a party with a strong anti-immigrant bent was the most successful, as people voted their fears instead of their hopes in the wake of the terror.

But in yesterday’s second round, the far-right National Front was shut out, winning not a single region. That was due in part to the idea that the country’s Socialists put country ahead of politics. They withdrew some of their candidates in favor of those in the conservative, but not crazy conservative, party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy. 

I’m not sure what lessons Americans, less than two weeks removed from the horror at San Bernardino, can take from the French. The U.S. will begin voting for a new president seven weeks from today when Iowans attend their party caucuses. While the Democrats appear to be coalescing behind Hillary Clinton, the Republicans are shifting from one fear monger, Donald Trump, to another, Ted Cruz.

Can Americans overcome their fears and vote their hopes? We’ll know soon enough.

5. Today is the third anniversary of what I still believe is the most disgraceful moment in American history in my lifetime.

That, of course, would be the slaying of 20 elementary school teachers and six teachers and other school staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

It is hard to fathom that 20 children, all around the age of six, would die a violent death in a classroom. It is harder to fathom that the American people, and their representatives in Washington, did absolutely nothing to make certain that it never happens again. The Congress refused to pass legislation that would limit access to weapons like the ones used to massacre kids.

Instead, a cetriolo from the National Rifle Association got on TV and said, out loud instead of suppressing it among the “thoughts” coursing the vegetation in his head, that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. In other words, teachers should keep one hand on a storybook and the other on a .22.

It should be an embarrassment to us and to this country. It should have never happened again. But, of course, similar events have happened innumerable times in unthinkable places – a Charleston church, an Oregon college, a San Bernardino holiday party.

Until we do something about the scourge of guns in this country, we have no business looking the victims’ families in the eye. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Alas, every time you see an NRA sticker on the back of some idiot’s truck, you know that way too many of us don’t give a damn.

1. It’s Wednesday, December 10, 2015.

Christmas Eve is two weeks from today.

2. The yin and yan of today’s New York Times/CBS News poll about Trump: He’s got the support of 35% of Republicans – and two-thirds of the country is either concerned or frightened by his candidacy.

Put it this way: If you’re for Trump, look to the person at the left, then look at the person at the right. BOTH of them think the guy you want is a disaster.

The 35% support among Republicans is interesting. To get the nomination, Trump needs to win delegates to the GOP convention in Cleveland. So he needs a first-place finish. He has to win either the Iowa caucus or the New Hampshire primary in early February – right now, he’s ahead in both places.

If he were to win one or both of those, he would have some momentum going into the rest of the Republican primary process. You would expect the party’s elders to try to throw some kind of roadblock in his way –  a coalition behind one of the other candidates, a draft Mitt Romney or Condoleezza Rice movement, something.

The nomination isn’t quite in Trump’s grasp. But it is in his sights. And then we’ll see if the two-thirds of us who shudder at the thought of this guy even sniffing the White House have the wherewithal to stop him cold.

4. But there’s another interesting finding in the poll. Almost as large a percentage of the populace is concerned or frightened by a Hillary Clinton presidency as it is about Trump.

I can sit here and be bewildered by that. Or I can try to understand.

I keep believing that Clinton will get people to coalesce behind her once she secures the Democratic nomination. They’ll see the option, whether it’s Trump or one of the not-that-much-less-scary other Republicans, and realize that a dangerous path for the country to follow. And I keep believing that the possibility of a woman president will spark enthusiasm among her supporters.

Hillary Clinton might not face much of a challenge in her party – even if Bernie Sanders wins New Hampshire. But she faces a daunting challenge – making this country comfortable with the idea of her as its leader. She should use the opportunity that Sanders and Martin O’Malley are giving her in the Democratic primaries, a chance to establish who she is and why she is a leader for the whole country.