ArcaMax

But Bill Clinton even seemed to defend the term "super-predators," chastising the Black Lives Matter hecklers with, "You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter."

Why the big shift in tone? Maybe the former president had grown weary in the moment of having to defend his record, even when it means glossing over his own apologies. As one who recalls the Clinton years well, this is hardly the first time I have seen Bubba get quite belligerent when he is challenged over something he gets passionate about.

But he needs to do more than argue. Much has been said about the generation gap that has caused younger women to prefer Sanders over Hillary Clinton. As the parent of a politically savvy African-American twentysomething, I have seen the same gap open up between black millennials and their elders.

Too young to remember the peace and prosperity of the 1990s, today's youths are more familiar with mass incarceration, violent crime surges, viral videos of police brutality and losses in many black households of economic gains they made in the Clinton years.

New Twitter-age movements like Black Lives Matter are fueled by such experts as Michelle Alexander, 48, and her best-seller "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."

In an essay published in The Nation before South Carolina's primary, titled "Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote," Alexander harshly questioned the "devotion" of black voters to the Clintons.

"Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African-Americans?" she wrote. "Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities...?" No, she wrote, "Quite the opposite." Ouch.

Instead of blowing his stack, today's leading candidate to be the first "First Dude" needs to help his wife reach out to those young folks. Sanders makes it look easy.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)

(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.