MINNEAPOLIS — The Vermont senator has gained rapid “Berie-mentum” over the summer by speaking to large sold-out crowds about overthrowing the establishment and disarming the powerful, but this weekend, the powerful establishment was eating right out of his hand.
During his four decades in politics, Bernie Sanders rose to fame as the the fringe independent candidate whose ideas often overlapped with the Democratic Party, but still he never referred to himself as a Democrat or even a liberal, always a “progressive.” The weekend marked his very first appearance at the Democratic National Committee Summer Meeting, and only his second time addressing the DNC (the other was the convention in 2008). The self-described socialist made his plea to another kind of sold-out crowd: the establishment of the party he hopes to win the nomination of.
“Nobody can register as a Democrat in the state of Vermont,” Sanders explained to the DNC. “I vote in the Democratic primaries. I have helped elect some Democratic governors in the state of Vermont. I have been a member of the Democratic caucus from virtually the first day I was in the House and throughout my nine years in the Senate.”
During the first quarter, the Sanders campaign raised $15 million without the help of a super political action committee. This amount was more than many Republican candidates, but about a third of what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised. Earlier this week, Sanders surpassed Clinton in New Hampshire, and according to the latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll, Sanders now trails only seven points behind the front-runner.
Even Sanders is surprised by this transformation. While speaking to the press after his speech to the DNC, which was met with multiple cheers, chants and standing ovations, Sanders remarked to the press that the campaign’s reality has exceeded his wildest imagination.
“If I was with you literally four months ago today and you were to ask me if I was running for president of the United States, the truthful answer would be I really don’t know,” Sanders said. “It has been a heck of a three and a half months.”
While Sanders has held onto his old supporters — a woman with long grey hair and a hippie skirt with a Bernie sticker found swaying outside the conference; or the Woodstock alum playing bongos outside the Minneapolis Hilton singing about how Bernie will bring change to Washington, for example — he’s also seemed to pick up some new fans too. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has repeatedly spoken in favor of Sanders and party leader Donna Brazile tweeted that she was “honored” and “fired up” he was addressing the DNC.
“No, he is not a fringe candidate anymore at all. I think his views … are well within the mainstream of our country and certainly our party,” Connecticut congressional candidate Thomas Day said after the event.
But Clinton has already locked in 1/5 of the necessary super-delegates to win the nomination, and the first primary doesn’t begin for six months. While much noise generated from the crowd during Sanders’ address, it wasn’t from the front of the room where the delegates sat, but rather the back, where guests to the conference gathered.
“Most of the people in the room weren’t Bernie Sanders supporters, they were Bernie devotees,” DNC member Ed Cote said. “By and large these were Hillary people. I think they all like him but it’s his viability in the general [election] that’s the question.”
