Sanders entered the race in May last year. My husband and I went to the announcement because it is pretty rare that a politician comes to your town to announce and it was a very beautiful Burlington day and there bike "parking" was set up by the local bike group. Biking 4 miles along the lake to sit on the lake shore sounded good ... even if even people here thought it very very unlikely. Everyone I know hoped he could force discussion on important issues. I suspect that many many people would have been willing to bet he would never get more than say 15%.
The last two years have shown that Bernie's populist, FDR like Democratic socialism message and Bernie himself have garnered a huge amount of support. Watching his announcement speech, I was struck by how NOT CYNICAL it was. The solutions he spoke of were not alien, but from the best of American heritage of communities working for the people in them. It reaches back to a Norman Rockwell view of America - updated to be more diverse and modern. afterwards, I started to think how the American Dream from that period was a good life, where needs were met -- not where you too could own a megamansion, working 60 hours a week, motivated to make your family richer than 99% of the country.
When you look at the % of people convinced the country is not going in the right direction -- AND -- that the Republicans in Congress are liked less than their Democratic counterparts and far less than Obama, what we might be seeing is that there really is a lot of discontent with the status quo, that might even be not completely seen because Obama himself is respected by many.
The party very likely discouraged many younger Democrats, more mainstream than Bernie, from running. Oddly, they might not have done HRC a favor. I hypothesized that in 2008, in addition to Obama needing to run an excellent campaign and HRC at best a mediocre one, he needed the race to become a 2 person race so he could get all the not HRC vote. Given the complete lack of traction that O'Malley has received so far, this could end up another two person race. The issues of the two years are very very different -- but if the perception is accurate that this is a year that favors outsiders, in Bernie, we have a qualified, compassionate, literate, man of integrity ... while the Republicans have a hate filled likable only to his base person, prone to lies and making ugly comments - named either Trump or Cruz.
Months ago, Bernie was quoted as having told his wife, Jane, that she would like Iowa, because "it was like Vermont". In the coverage of Trump's stunt in Burlington, Chuck Todd and to a lesser degree Chris Matthews, both spoke of "crunchy granola" Burlington. Burlington is left leaning, but they completely missed how reasonably the town handled the mess Trump tried to inflict. I love that the people in City Hall, put letters that spelled WE WELCOME REFUGEES in the top windows on City Hall, which was across the street from the Flynn. (They lit up only the top floor - making the words shine through to the protesting crowd below in City Hall park. ) Though this hardly made the news, this was the city standing with the protesters. Not to mention, where the majority of the Trump people came from elsewhere, the majority of the protesters were local.
It is rather disappointing that Chuck Todd, in particular, ignored that the city maintained order in a tough circumstance instead mocking it. The contrast between the mayor, the chief of police, and the protesters to the hateful Trump. It would have been interesting if rather than adding to the political game play, they would have shown the very real decency of the town's reaction.
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