“Obama still was able to convey a sense of progressiveness and realness that was nonetheless very exciting. You don’t think of the middle as being an exciting place…”

Depends on your point or view. Most candidates on the left of the Democratic party have been spinning essentially the same hackneyed ideas since Adlai Stevenson, just as those on the right of the GOP are still tossing the same raw meat that was tossed to their ancestors in the fifties. Almost invariably new ideas come from the center, where workable plans have to be developed out of compromise. On either end of the spectrum the candidates know there’s no real hope of attaining almost anything they promise so they promise the moon because the audience out there loves it and to be honest doesn’t care if any of it ever passes or not, they’re just there for the show. Only twice in the last hundred years has revolutionary reform been possible after an election: under FDR and then under Reagan. After that you have various candidates pretending it’s 1932 and 1980 again respectively. Just like now, with Bernie Sanders on our side making impossible to implement proposals and nearly all of the GOP cast of crazies on their side promising to do exactly what Sam Brownback is doing to Kansas now. It’s complete crap on both sides, but it’s good theater, and it sure gets Facebook worked up. But you ask any of these Bernie Sanders fans just how his proposals will be implemented in real life they will not be able to answer…nor will they care. And it goes without saying that the GOP is the same. This campaign is not about change, it’s about show biz. Once the press begins focusing on Bernie Sanders for viable explanations for how to pass, fund and implement his proposals, that’s when it gets hard. Right now he and all the GOP are playing to Facebook. This is still recess. The real campaign hasn’t even started.