The time had come, several said, to end their romance with Bernie Sanders and settle down with Mrs. Clinton.

“Bernie Sanders’s odds of getting the nomination are maybe not that great,” said Mitchell Westall, 19, of Suffolk, Va., who added that he had been intrigued by the Vermont senator’s vision. “So I’m looking at the other Democrat.”

“I don’t vote with my emotions,” said Bridget Coughlan Hermer, 54, a teacher and Clinton supporter from Madison Lake, Minn. “I vote with my head.”

Through such a pragmatic frame, Ms. Hermer saw a silver lining to Mrs. Clinton’s ties to Wall Street, which Mr. Sanders has assailed as emblematic of a rigged campaign finance system: “She knows how to earn money and keep her campaign running,” Ms. Hermer said.

MR. SIMON: I mean, did you ever back in the '60s, between when -- I believe you were a Goldwater girl --
MRS. CLINTON: That's right.
MR. SIMON: -- and whenever you became politically –
MRS. CLINTON: That's right. And I feel like my political beliefs are rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with. I don't recognize this new brand of Republicanism that is afoot now, which I consider to be very reactionary, not conservative in many respects. I am very proud that I was a Goldwater girl. And then my political beliefs changed over time.

“Sen. Sanders accepts Clinton’s challenge. He will release all of the transcripts of all of his Wall Street speeches. That’s easy. The fact is, there weren’t any. Bernie gave no speeches to Wall Street firms. He wasn’t paid anything while Secretary Clinton made millions, including $675,000 for three paid speeches to Goldman Sachs,” said Sanders’ spokesman Michael Briggs.

On CNN last week and on Meet the Press this week, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders cited me as someone who has given him foreign policy advice. I admit I was surprised to hear this—I have spoken to Senator Sanders only once since he declared his candidacy, in October. In the time since, this fact has been used by the media and his opponents to cast doubt on Sanders’ foreign policy credibility, to point out a supposed weak spot in a surging candidacy: Since I’m not on his campaign, and have met with him only once, how serious could Sanders—the socialist crusader battling the former secretary of state—really be?

The answer is: serious. Since Sanders’ public mention of me, I have been asked repeatedly whether I think his foreign policy positions and experience are sound. I do.

In my dealings with him, and in analyzing his record in Congress over the past 25 years, I have found that Sanders has taken balanced, realistic positions on many of the most critical foreign policy issues facing the country. In the mold of realists like Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, Sanders voted against the invasion of Iraq in 2002, while wisely supporting the war against in Afghanistan in 2001 and the intervention in the Balkans in 1990s. And Sanders certainly isn’t a foreign policy lightweight: In fact, given his long tenure in the House and Senate, he has more foreign policy experience than Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama did when they were running for office the first time.

...

I have no doubt that Sanders will be willing to challenge the foreign policy establishment, as Obama did on such issues. Does Sanders have the same amount of foreign policy experience as Hillary Clinton? Obviously not. But Bill Clinton had far less foreign policy experience than George H.W. Bush, and Obama had less than John McCain—and both presidents had effective foreign policies. If he is elected, I believe Sanders will also be able to attract a competent foreign policy cohort, just as Obama did—including many of the current Clinton team. With the right partners in place—and, above all, the right principals and instincts—a President Sanders could be just the foreign policy president we need.