Is the political establishment right that Sanders doesn't have a chance?
There have been myriad articles written about the lack of attention given to Sen. Sanders campaign for president. A quick Google search pulls up plenty of "conventional wisdom". There are plenty of stories about Sanders' socialism, about how his campaign is design to attack Hillary Clinton, about how he "rails" against Wall St and all the rest. Do you know what you don't see in all these conventional wisdom stories? The background story of who Bernie Sanders is, what he stands for and why he's running for president. One publication did run a story like that though.
The National Journal ran an interesting piece about a year ago on the likely hood of a Sanders campaign. The piece is a lengthy one, with the provocative title, "I'm Right and Everybody Else Is Wrong. Clear About That?"
The article takes a serious look at Senator Bernie Sanders. It profiles his rise to fame in Burlington, VA as a mayor who did things differently and shook up the establishment.
In 1981, running as an independent and promising to govern as a "democratic socialist," Sanders pulled off a surprise victory and became mayor of Burlington, the largest city in the state. Much of Burlington's political establishment was genuinely disturbed by the prospect of a Sanders administration. "I think everyone's scared right now," one state senator told a reporter.
I think that this article is a really good one and encourage folks to go check it out. It profiles the man behind the campaign: gruff, deeply cranky, cantankerous. But it also details stories about his Brooklyn upbringing, his father's flight from Nazi Germany, and his activism going back to the 60s. The main thrust shows up in this buried paragraph on what a Sanders campaign means in the US in 2016
But a Sanders run wouldn't really be about Hillary. It would be about using the national stage to serve as an evangelist for a certain set of left-wing ideas. Those ideas add up, not surprisingly, to a pointed critique of the American political system, the Democratic Party establishment, and even progressives themselves. How voters receive both this message and the deeply cranky messenger may not ultimately have much bearing on who wins the nomination, or the presidency, in 2016. It could, however, go a long way toward determining the future of the American Left.
One final note. I have no illusions that Hillary Clinton will
probably win the Democratic nomination. If she does beat Sen. Sanders, I will support her in the general wholeheartedly, but Senator Sanders has my vote in the primary.