THIS IS REAL – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  The holidays are over.  No more excuses for the political class to take time off.  Today starts the real presidential campaign, the campaign of 2016, the campaign for actual votes cast by people who don't have "pundit" stamped on their foreheads. 

And the Democrats are worried.  From the Washington Times: 

Democratic Party activists are conflicted over whether Hillary Clinton can take on Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in the general election, with some fearing she provides too much ammunition for the flamboyant businessman’s style of attack.

While Mr. Trump is leading the national polls and calling the shots in what’s become a circuslike GOP primary season, Mrs. Clinton tops a sedentary Democratic race with two other opponents respectfully nipping at her without doing much damage — and party stalwarts are happy to have it that way.

“I hear a lot of people saying, ‘You know, I’ve watched the Democratic debates and the Republican debates, and they’re so different. I’m sure glad I’m on the Democratic side and they’re talking about the issues. They don’t always agree with one another, but they explain why,’” said David Allen, a Democratic Party leader in Barnstead, New Hampshire. “Democrats have resolved themselves to not go into a circus and tear one another down.”

But Mr. Allen said he does worry about how the eventual Democratic nominee will stand up to the sort of withering barbs Mr. Trump has dished out to his own side.

“We’re going to start to have to look at how the [Democratic] candidates play against Donald Trump, because he’s certainly holding onto his lead in the Republican Party, and he has certainly played the Republican candidates in a way that has hurt some of his opposition, and I think people are going to start asking, ‘All right, who’s going to stand up under his type of campaigning?’” Mr. Allen said. “If Bernie [Sanders] is the candidate, Trump will play up how un-American socialism is, and if Hillary gets it, he will dig up everything in the past 40 years and use it — and won’t mince words in using it.”

Other activists say there’s a sense that, while it’s Mrs. Clinton’s turn to run, there’s no swell of on-the-ground enthusiasm for her to carry the party’s banner into the general election.

COMMENT:   Hmmm.  Her turn.  Yeah, that's the way the old Republican Party used to work, but not this year.

It is true that there's no "wanting" of Hillary, except maybe among her legion of mink-coat 1960s feminists.  Her record is poor, her campaign style boring.  Bill Clinton is now out campaigning for her, which makes her look weak and needy.

Republicans can win, if they don't mess it up.

January 4, 2016