Harper’s Magazine is venerable and reliably left wing magazine catering to a readership that (justifiably or not) prides itself on being intelligent and sophisticated. That’s why its new cover story (available online to subscribers only), “Stop Hillary! Vote No to a Clinton Dynasty,” is so interesting. The wannabe opinion leaders of the liberal community turning against Hillary leaves open the door for another Barack Obama-type of fresh-faced challenger.

Here is what the New York Post’s Page Six tells us about the piece by writer Doug Henwood, which I have not read.

According to Henwood’s in-depth essay on Hillary’s past, she “has a long history of being economical with the truth,” and though “it’s been more than 13 years since the Clintons left the White House, it’s amazing how little there is to say about Hillary’s subsequent career.”

He asks of a potential campaign: “What is the case for Hillary? It boils down to this: She has experience, she’s a woman, and it’s her turn. It’s hard to find any substantive political argument in her favor.”

He adds: “Since leaving the State Department, Hillary has devoted herself to what we can only call…Clinton, Inc. This fund-raising, favor-dispensing machine is key to understanding her joint enterprise with Bill…That means nonstop self-promotion, huge book advances and fat speaking fees.”

Henwood could get nobody who is familiar with Hillary but Dick Morris to speak with him for publication, which does seem to indicate the lack of a positive case to be made and a defensive crouch -- a position that is very difficult to maintain for an extended period and win an election.

We’ll see how this reverberates in the world of left opinion. It is already quite clear that the progressives, i.e., the outright leftists who usually dominate the Democratic Party, are not happy with Hillary and would prefer someone else, like Elizabeth Warren.

Hillary still has the money and muscle to dominate anyone presently on the horizon. But the more times the question of exactly what she has done to merit the presidency is asked, the better. A dispirited, grumbling progressive elite will not be able to fire up the base in 2016.