A"must read" for all Vermonters and those who wish they were. Mark Liebovich nails the real Bernie in this story, definitely not a 'puff' piece. I wonder if Bernie and his supporters will appreciate the rather intense focus on his quirkiness and the Socialist umbrella he carries. Bernie likes to be out of step with capitalist America. The question is: can he thrive in the Senate?
Vermonters may appreciate the real Bernie, but I expect the Senate will not.
"Socialism brings Sanders instant novelty in Washington and, in many circles, instant dismissal as a freak. But Sanders’s outcast status in Washington probably owes as much to his jackhammer style as to any stubborn ideology. It is a town filled with student body president types — and Sanders, for his part, finished a distant third when he ran to be president of his class at James Madison High School in Brooklyn.
Few would describe Sanders’s personality as “winning” in the classic politician’s sense. He appears to burn a disproportionate number of calories smiling and making eye contact. “Bernie is not going to win a lot of ‘whom would you rather live on a desert island with’ contests,” says Garrison Nelson, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont. No matter. Sanders’s agitating style in Washington also constitutes a basic facet of anticharm, antipolitician appeal at home.
“I’m not afraid of being called a troublemaker,” Sanders says, something he’s been called many times, in many different ways, many of them unprintable. “But you have to be smart. And being smart means not creating needless enemies for yourself.”""...Sanders’s popularity in Vermont brings up the obvious questions: to what degree is he a quaint totem of the state, like the hermit thrush (the state bird), and could a Socialist be elected to the Senate anywhere else?
In recent years, Vermont has joined — perhaps surpassed — states like Massachusetts and New York in the top tier of liberal outposts. Several distinctions nurture the state’s credentials: It was the first place to legalize civil unions for same-sex partners; it is the home of Phish, the countercultural rock-folk band and contemporary analog to the Grateful Dead and of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream (and its peacenik-themed flavors); and it is host to cultural quirks and ordinances like not allowing billboards, being the last state to get a Wal-Mart."
"...Sanders calls himself as a “democratic Socialist.” When I asked him what this meant, as a practical matter, in capitalist America circa 2007, he did what he often does: he donned his rhetorical Viking’s helmet and waxed lovingly about the Socialist governments of Scandinavia. He mentioned that Scandinavian countries have nearly wiped out poverty in children — as opposed to the United States, where 18 to 20 percent of kids live in poverty. The Finnish government provides free day care to all children; Norwegian workers get 42 weeks of maternity leave at full pay.
But would Americans ever accept the kinds of taxes that finance the Scandinavian welfare state? And would Sanders himself trade in the United States government for the Finnish one? He is curiously, frustratingly non-responsive to questions like this. “I think there is a great deal we can learn from Scandinavia,” he said after a long pause. And then he returns to railing about economic justice and the rising gap between rich and poor, things he speaks of with a sense of outrage that always seems freshly summoned.
"...As a general rule, Sanders is much more convincing at proffering outrage than solutions. He can do this in Vermont, in part, because he is an entrenched political brand — “Bernie” — and voters will forgive a little blowhardedness (if not demagoguery) from someone they basically agree with and who has grown utterly familiar to their landscape, like cows. Sanders can also pull this off because, as he did in the mayor’s office, he has buttressed his bomb-throwing with rock-solid attention to the pothole matters of dental clinics, veterans’ benefits, farm subsidies, the kind of things an attentive politician operating in a tiny state (with a population of just 620,000) can fashion a formidable political base from."
"...He was also gifted at drawing attention to his issues and (just as important) to himself. He was the first congressman to lead a bus trip to Canada to help seniors buy cheaper prescription drugs."
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