“Bernie came in with the luxury of being a complete long shot and just letting loose,” he said. “I think Hillary came in with the both privilege – and burden – of being perceived as the frontrunner… You’re always looking at the bright, shiny object that people haven’t seen before – that's a disadvantage to her.”

Even as he spoke wistfully of his 80-plus cold-pizza and crowded-van days in Iowa eight years ago, Obama seemed to embrace Clinton’s 2008 closing Iowa argument as much as his own, adopting her contention that inspiration without experience won’t cut it. He repeatedly praised Clinton without reservation while offering more tempered praise to the surging Sanders, whom he sees as a principled outsider seeking to change “terms of the debate that were set by Ronald Reagan 30 years ago.”
(snip)
Gesturing to the Resolute Desk, with its spread-winged eagle seal, first brought into the Oval Office by John F. Kennedy, Obama said of Sanders: “Well, I don't want to play political consultant, because obviously what he’s doing is working. I will say that the longer you go in the process, the more you’re going to have to pass a series of hurdles that the voters are going to put in front of you.”
(snip)
When I asked Obama if Clinton is facing “unfair scrutiny” this time around, his answer was a clipped “yes” – and he even admitted a tinge of regret that his own campaign had been so hard on her eight years ago.

But when I asked him if Sanders reminded him of himself in 2008, he quickly shot me down: “I don’t think that's true.”