Editor’s note: This commentary is by Mark Heinrichs, of Barton, who is pastor of Sutton Freewill Baptist Church (organized in 1837) in Sutton.
[I] remember seeing Bernie Sanders campaigning in Burlington in the 1980s in his first successful run for mayor. An avowed Democratic Socialist who stood out from the crowd of candidates, Bernie worked and campaigned hard to connect with Vermonters. Yes, even then he had messy hair.
Burlington was a friendly place for him to start his career and he connected with Democrats, libertarians and uncommitted voters. He vigorously advocated for labor and for the little guy/gal. Bernie took his stock and trade message of racial, social and economic equality to places where that resonated and he created a new and powerful coalition in the politics of Vermont. He railed against the 1 percenters and big banks and corporations.
Successful as Burlington mayor, in 1990, Bernie saw opportunity in the Vermont congressional race against Peter Smith, the incumbent Republican candidate. Growing his coalition to a statewide level, Bernie campaigned hard and smart, connecting with Vermonters in every corner of the state, but focusing on the Montpelier/Burlington area, going door to door, pressing the flesh and presumably kissing babies. Bernie was able to mobilize the discontent of regular people and direct that against establishment political opponents.
He won that election as an independent, but worked with the Democrats in order to attain congressional committee assignments. Following Jim Jeffords’ retirement from the U.S. Senate, Bernie became a U.S. senator in the 2006 election. In 2012, Vermont returned Bernie to the U.S. Senate with 71 percent of the vote.
In my opinion, Vermont conservatives have had difficulty running against Bernie for several reasons:
• Over the last 50 years, the influx of liberally aligned/politically active baby boomers into Vermont.
• Bernie’s ability to connect with the self- perceived “little guy/gal,” and politically mobilize him/her.
• As a congressman, Bernie’s office connected well with rank and file Vermonters in the mundane task of assisting citizens trying to navigate the halls of the federal bureaucracy.
• The Vermont Republican Party’s inept attempt to challenge Bernie’s message. (Here’s a place to start the critique — Bernie is a one-message candidate, long on notions of social/economic equality, with government fixing all problems, but blind to of resultant downside/unintended consequences of his proposals. Socialism works fine until you run out of everybody else’s money (credit: Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister in the 1980s).
Then came Bernie’s entrance into presidential politics in 2016. Running as a Democrat, Bernie again connected with the little guy/gal, and built new coalitions. He campaigned energetically, raised a pile of money through small donations, and did surprisingly well against a lethargic, ethically compromised, and self-entitled Democratic establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton.
Bernie suffered for his hesitant allegiance to the Democratic Party. Donna Brazile, former chair of the Democratic Party, details in her book (“Hacks: The Inside Story”) how the Democratic National Committee was run by the Clinton campaign long before the Democratic Convention chose her as its candidate. The book included accusations that money given to the Democratic national party organization was then funneled primarily into Clinton’s campaign through state political action committees. Even more, pre-convention, decisions at the national party level were generally made to suit Clinton.
Despite all this, perhaps Bernie and Hillary had a conversation at the end of the Democratic convention, as is common practice in both parties, that her campaign would pay off some of Bernie’s campaign expenses and debts, and he would campaign for her. If that was the case, the upside for Bernie — money left over from his campaign which he can legally use any way he wants. The upside for Hillary, dispensing with a troublesome campaign headache.
Bernie campaigns for Hillary and also buys a $575,000 lake house on Lake Champlain with 500 feet of frontage just weeks after the convention, his third house (from Washington Post, Aug. 10, 2016). Really, Bernie? Really!
We Vermonters are left with the image of Sen. Bernie, now a 1 percenter, scratching himself, scowling and muttering on live television during the January State of the Union speech by President Donald Trump. Yes, Bernie, has evolved. His hair was combed.
