RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-clinton-ship-takes-on-water-1439507369

Hillary feels compelled to issue an everyone-remain-calm memo 15 months before the election.

The Titanic was a beautiful ship. It was a colossus—the culmination of decades of wisdom and design. It was financed and booked by the world’s rich and famous. It was unstoppable. And because it was, it steamed full ahead. Until it sank.

Democrats are this week beginning to freak out that Hillary Clinton is their Titanic, and to debate whether they might be better off on this 2016 political crossing in a less awesome, but more prudent, boat. The debate is overdue. The Clintons are masters at projecting invincibility and lulling their passengers into blanking the danger signs. But holes in a hull have a way of focusing minds.

It’s never a good sign when your party’s putative nominee feels compelled to send out an everyone-remain-calm memo 15 full months before an election. Campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri’s reassurance to supporters was classic Clinton—the perfect combo of airy dismissal (Server? FBI? It means nothing!), misdirection (this whole “classified” thing is really “complicated”), table-turning (Republicans hide things too, you know), and attack (this is just a “partisan witch-hunt”). Still, you don’t send out 700-word explanatories unless party leaders and donors are lighting you up with panic calls.

When Mrs. Clinton handed over her private email server to the Justice Department, Democrats sniffed vulnerability and took a wider look around. What they see is polls showing more than half of America now holds an unfavorable view of their front-runner, and that a mere one-third of the country trusts her. They see surveys showing her only tied with top-tier Republicans in a general matchup—down from a 10-point advantage in May—and losing head-to-head in key battleground states.

They see an insurgent wing of the Democratic electorate that is unenthused by the old Clinton machine and eager for fresh blood. Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders surged past Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire primary poll released Tuesday. His recent rally in Los Angeles drew more than 27,000 people—five times the size of any recent Clinton event. They see another part of the electorate that is fine with old blood, so long as it is any type but Clinton blood. Joe Biden—who isn’t even in the race, and who is . . . Joe Biden—is doing as well in general matchups against Republicans as is Mrs. Clinton.

They see a campaign that—if it went by any other name—might be accused of ineptitude. Mrs. Clinton is disciplined and experienced, no doubt. But her operation has stumbled along. It has been buffeted by gaffes, criticized for drifting “listening tours,” beset (as in 2008) by infighting. It was inexcusably late to the Super PAC game.

Democrats also see new weakness in their favorite themes. Here is Mrs. Clinton trying out an inequality argument, as she builds up her personal bank account. Here she is floating the “war on women” theme, as her foundation takes donations from countries that whip rape victims. Here she calls for lower college costs while charging these institutions $250,000 for a speech. Here is a candidate who was in the past for Keystone, and for trade, and for more intervention overseas. And who maybe now is not. Though they don’t really know. Which is also a problem.

And now, they see danger. The party trusted the Clintons to handle the email scandal in their usual way—to ignore it until it faded. But there’s no ignoring stories containing the words “FBI,” “criminal inquiry,” “classified” and “secret”—all in one sentence. On Tuesday, her use of private emails while serving as secretary of state turned from a political problem into a potentially legal problem. Thousands of Democrats woke Wednesday morning from nightmares of landing an “unsinkable” nominee that gets indicted.

For now, no one significant is jumping off the Clinton ship. That’s mostly because the party believes it has no other ship to jump to. Martin O’Malley? Jim Webb? Heck, even Mrs. Clinton’s rivals seem convinced she’s a better bet than they are. Amid all the news this week, not one of them—not even Mr. Sanders—said boo about her ethics.

The Clintons might also trust that Barack Obama still sees her as his best bet to win and preserve his legacy. This administration, of course, exercises influence over the Justice Department (don’t forget that FBI non-probe into the IRS scandal). And so it remains a possibility the feds took Mrs. Clinton’s server as a means of safeguarding it from other prying hands—the courts, inspectors general, Congress—until this election is over. If the FBI now goes quiet, and other agencies start using the FBI probe as an excuse to stop any further action on Clinton emails, that will be the tipoff.

Then again, the Clintons have now reached the point at which all it might take is one, big first-class passenger heading for a lifeboat to inspire an exodus. It might be Mr. Obama, who could signal his view by giving the FBI free rein. Or Sen. Elizabeth Warren might see her moment. Or maybe a respected party elder who calls out the candidate. Let’s hope so. The Democratic Party deserves to steer its own future. Not just lash itself to the RMS Hillary.

Write to kim@wsj.com.