-Caveat Lector-
Weekdays With Bernie
Vermont Waits for Sanders to Decide About Senate Campaign
By Tim Curran
WINOOSKI, Vt. -- At a town meeting just outside Burlington on health care
issues, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warns the roughly 75 seniors packing the
event that Wall Street's efforts to privatize Social Security would be an
"unmitigated disaster."
The House's lone Independent also rails against a pharmaceutical industry
that he says is jacking up prices on the elderly. Both threats, Sanders tells
the gathering, stem from a system that gives those with money the greatest
voice in Washington.
"The answer is, you must become active in the political process," he tells
the crowd.
"Stand up and express your view," Sanders adds, breaking into a grin. "It
could be part of your physical fitness program."
And while the discussion never touches on the possibility of a dramatic
change in Sanders' own electoral circumstance, it is Sanders' future that is
the talk of Vermont political circles this summer.
The five-term House Member -- arguably the most successful elected
Independent in the nation -- is weighing a challenge to Sen. Jim Jeffords (R)
next year, and speculation about his intentions is rampant.
Just don't ask Sanders to cooperate in attempts to divine his plans.
Confronted with the question in his office in the heart of downtown
Burlington, a city whose government he helped transform in his eight years as
mayor, he bristles.
Whether to risk a run for a seat in the Senate, where the rules would allow
him more freedom to operate, or remain in the House, where he has established
seniority and a chance to chair a subcommittee if Democrats take control of
the chamber next year, is a decision he says will be made "when it is the
appropriate time."
While sources close to Sanders have said that decision is likely to come by
the end of the summer, he promises no such thing. And he calls the
speculation "an insult" to the people of Vermont, who because of constant
press attention to the next campaign are left to "think that all their
elected officials do" is plot their path to higher office.
Ever the iconoclast, Sanders insists he will make his determination about his
future on his own terms. And while Senate Democrats are aggressively lobbying
him to make the race, if he does decide to do so, it will be in his own way,
as an Independent.
"I am an Independent for very concrete reasons. ... I believe that both
parties are dominated by corporate interests" and put corporate America
before middle-class and working Americans, said Sanders. "That's why I remain
an Independent. Not because I think it's cute."
Waiting for Bernie
After the town meeting, one of those in attendance, state Sen. Jim Leddy (D),
sums up Vermont's political calculus. As long as Sanders is contemplating a
Senate bid, everyone else's Congressional ambitions will remain on hold.
"There's no money going to come from Washington until he decides on the
race," Leddy says. "I think everyone is waiting.
"He's a one-person party. He has the deepest support" of any political figure
in the state, Leddy says. "He really speaks to people who feel powerless, and
they respond."
"Will he or won't he?" has emerged as the most popular game in Vermont's
tightly knit political community over the past months.
Susan Russ, Jeffords' chief of staff, said she has watched with some
amusement as the "players" in the state have tried to read the tea leaves to
determine Sanders' intentions.
"When I went up in March, it was something like 18 to 2, with almost everyone
saying he was in," Russ said, adding that a couple of months later, the same
people were saying it was only 50-50 that Sanders would run.
"This week, it's that he's back in," Russ said Thursday.
If Sanders does run, he will give up the at-large House seat he has held
since his shocking victory over incumbent Peter Smith (R) in 1990. Since that
race, he has established himself as all but unbeatable in the seat, cobbling
together a coalition of students, veterans and seniors and co-opting
traditionally Democratic voters. Vermont returned the House's only avowed
socialist to office with 64 percent of the vote last year, and polls already
show a Jeffords-Sanders race would be tight.
The Brooklyn-born and raised Sanders first emerged as something of a gadfly,
losing four statewide races before helping to construct the progressive
coalition that would help him oust a six-term Democratic incumbent as mayor
of Burlington by a 10-vote margin.
He won attention for his efforts to control growth, provide affordable
housing and overhaul the tax base and in 1988 ran for the state's open House
seat. Losing to Smith 41 to 36 percent in a three-way race, Sanders ran again
in 1990 and took 56 percent to become the first socialist elected to the
House since 1928.
After his election, Sanders tried to shun the spotlight that usually shines
briefly on out-of-the-mainstream newcomers.
"I do not have a lot of confidence in the corporate media," he scoffs. "Every
year they pick out a few new Members to write about" because of their
lifestyle or politics or the fact that they "have green hair" sets them apart.
"I went out of my way not to fall into that trap," he says. "I talked about
issues, issues, issues" and didn't try "to play off the fact that I'm an
Independent."
A Work in Progress
As he has risen in seniority on the Banking and Financial Services Committee
and established a solid constituent service operation, even observers who are
skeptical about his politics say Sanders has evolved in office.
Asked if the notoriously rumpled Sanders has changed his approach during the
1990s, Stephen Kiernan, the editorial page editor of the Burlington Free
Press, said wryly: "Without question. Now he wears a tie.
"I think his rhetoric has quieted some," Kiernan noted. "There's a
sophistication in his politics that has grown" over the years.
Kiernan pointed to Sanders' role in a pension dispute between IBM, the
state's largest single employer, and disgruntled workers as evidence that he
is regarded ever more seriously in the state. That Sanders would take the
side of workers in the face of Big Blue's attempts to cut pension benefits is
not surprising, Kiernan said, but added: "What's unusual is those workers are
at IBM, and that means his message is reaching into suburbia and white-collar
voters.
"Unlike practically any other politician I've covered over the years, Bernie
absolutely believes everything he says," Kiernan said. "Some people love
Bernie for it and some despise him, but they don't take it as some political
calculation. They take it as what he stands for."
Sanders has even made inroads in the business community.
Last Monday, he addressed the Burlington Rotary Club, a group he said once
represented "the seat of Sanders opposition" in overwhelmingly liberal
Burlington, hitting the GOP tax cut proposal and warning of the threat of
money to participatory democracy.
"The reception was pretty good," Sanders said, laughing. "I've worn them
down."
Mike Flynn, a former president of both the state and Lake Champlain Chambers
of Commerce and head of an accounting firm who was in attendance for Sanders'
appearance before the Rotarians, agreed.
"I think it's very true, he's gained a lot of respect," Flynn said last week,
joining Kiernan in noting Sanders' more "pragmatic" wardrobe. "Just the fact
that he wears a coat and tie. He's actually starting to look distinguished.
He's come a long way.
"I think when he first went down there ... I think we were devastated about
the damage he could do to the state," Flynn said of business leaders'
response to Sanders' election.
Sanders "has developed to the point where even people like me say, 'Hey,
maybe he's not so bad for the state.' As much as I disagree with him
politically, he may have even become somebody we can be proud of in this
state. In his own way he's becoming a Vermont institution. I kind of like the
guy," Flynn said.
But he also expressed his hope that the anticipated Senate battle would not
come to pass.
"I think it would be dumb for Bernie to run. ... He'd be giving up a very
comfortable position in the House," Flynn said, adding that he believes
Jeffords would easily prevail.
In the House
Sanders is also now regarded differently by colleagues on both sides of the
aisle in Washington, said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who served as a
special assistant to then-President Ronald Reagan.
"When he was first elected, I was as predisposed to be hostile as any
conservative Republican would be of Bernie Sanders," Rohrabacher said last
week. "But especially over the last two or three years, Bernie has been
earning our respect by finding areas where we could work together on things
where we are consistent in philosophy. He has found more areas of agreement
than any of us, frankly, thought possible."
Although they come from different ends of the spectrum, the two have been on
the same side of a number of economic and trade issues, including holding the
feet of the International Monetary Fund to the fire, as well as in opposing
American "adventurism" overseas.
"Finally I think it sunk in to a lot of people on this side of the aisle. ...
To the degree they're agreeing with me on some of these issues, they're also
agreeing with Bernie," Rohrabacher said. "Those who write him off are greatly
underestimating the man and also not looking at a great resource for the
House."
Pulled in Two Directions
House and Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are in a tug-of-war over Sanders, even
though he vows to remain an Independent in either chamber.
Despite the interest of a pair of prominent Democrats -- state auditor Ed
Flanagan and state Sen. Jan Backus -- in challenging Jeffords, Senate
Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee Chairman Robert Torricelli (N.J.) have made it clear they want
Sanders to run, and are assuring him he will be allowed to accrue seniority
in the chamber.
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), meanwhile, sees Sanders as a
key to claiming the Speaker's gavel in the 107th Congress. "Dick's talked to
him at least twice about this and urged him to stay," a top leadership aide
said last week.
The DSCC's focus on Sanders is a disappointment to some state Democrats.
"I can understand the DSCC's position. They think he's a Democrat, but he's
not," Backus, who challenged Jeffords in 1994, said. "He has not aligned
himself with Democrats in Vermont as he has in Washington. There are really
two Bernie Sanders."
For now, however, Backus can do little but wait, although unlike Flanagan,
who said he will run for the House seat if it comes open, she has not said
she will step aside for Sanders.
"I just wish he'd get out of my way, 'cause I really want to get a race
going," Backus said. And she feels there is a growing frustration that
Sanders has not yet given a clear sign. "He's got a great big stop sign up on
two races," she said.
Mark Michaud, executive director of the state Democratic Party, agreed. "In
the world of leverage, we have very little over the DSCC's actions," he said.
"We tried to convince them that there were Democrats who deserved their
support and that we are going to support regardless of Bernie's decision."
One of his concerns is how a Sanders candidacy would impact Democrats'
coordinated campaign efforts in the state. Gov. Howard Dean (D) is facing
re-election and control of both chambers of the legislature will be contested.
"Bernie has never participated in our coordinated campaigns in the past and
... will not in the future unless he decides to accept the Democratic
nomination."
Jeffords aides say the early speculation about a Sanders bid has provided an
unexpected benefit to the Republican. "The only thing it did was get us
focused much earlier," said Jeffords Chief of Staff Russ. "I think it has
been a good thing for us regardless."
The Third Way
In his office just off of the pedestrian walkway jammed with restaurants,
upscale shopping and throngs of college students and tourists that runs
through the heart of Burlington, Sanders prefers a discussion of the "crisis"
confronting American democracy to one on his political future.
He points to the fact that only 36 percent of eligible Americans participated
in the last election, says "the vast majority of poor people ... have given
up on the system" and cites as "particularly alarming" the participation of
less than 19 percent of voters age 24 and younger.
Couple those findings with the huge sums of money pumped into the system by
special interests, says Sanders, "and I would say we would be hard-pressed to
call that a democracy. That's more of an oligarchy.
"It's questionable, in any real sense of the word, whether democracy can
survive in this country," he says flatly.
And with so much attention in the media devoted to the Reform Party and its
poster boy, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura (Sanders derides the party and its
figurehead as "perfect for the media" and little more than a repackaging of
the two parties), Sanders also addressed why he has not attempted to use his
own success as an Independent to foster a national movement.
"One of the things that was thrown at me [when he was running for the House]
was that 'All Bernie Sanders wants to do is start a national third party,'"
he said, and as a result he promised he would undertake no such effort. "I've
made a commitment to the people of Vermont that I would not do this.
"But in another way ... what I'm trying to do is show that if an Independent
Congressman stands up for his beliefs ... you can bring people into the
political process. And that is an extremely important lesson."
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