Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is going to challenge the inevitability of Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the Democratic standard bearer for the White House. Bob Kinzel of Vermont Public Radio reports, “VPR has learned from several sources that Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will announce his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday. Sanders will release a short statement on that day and then hold a major campaign kickoff in Vermont in several weeks.” Mr, Sanders’ challenge from the left is a long-shot to say the least; he isn’t formally even a Democrat. Yet his entry into the race will benefit the Democrats and even Mrs. Clinton.
That the Sanders campaign is doomed from the get-go is almost a certainty. Elected as an independent for 16 years in the House before sitting in the Senate also as an independent, he merely caucuses with the Democrats. Becoming a Democrat is a small bureaucratic matter, but the degree to which he has avoided the machinery of the party will work against him. Moreover, he is not even the first choice among progressives. A recent Fox poll of registered Democrats showed 4% supported Mr. Sanders whereas 12% backed Senator Elizabeth Warren. Other polls show a similar preference.
The two biggest problems he has, apart from not being a Democrat yet, are his home and his personality. Candidates from small states (by population) are at a disadvantage in the race for the White House because their base is simply smaller. Since Massachusetts’ son JFK, the White House has been the home to men from Texas three times, California twice, and once each from Michigan, Georgia, Arkansas, and Illinois. Arkansas is the smallest of these, and it has twice Vermont’s electoral votes.
The other issue is his Brooklyn accent and east-coast manner. Senator Sanders plays well in the north east, but his appeal in Dixie, the Plains states or along the Rockies is limited. It is grossly unfair, but Americans elected George W. Bush because they could see themselves having a beer with him. Mr. Sanders just doesn’t have the same feel about him.
Still, one does not win 8 House races and a pair of Senate races (most recently with 71% of the general election vote) without being able to raise money, campaign effectively, and organize the bejesus out of the constituency. Vermont is a much smaller place than the nation as a whole, and so Mr. Sanders must build an organization from the ground up against the wishes of the pro-Clinton establishment. Vermont and the network of left-wing activists in his camp from earlier days, though, provide him with a base.
His campaign will serve three very important functions for the party. First, it ends the coronation phenomenon. Mrs. Clinton will actually have to work to win this; perhaps, she won’t have to work very hard, but the nomination is not going to be handed to her. That will energize party workers, and it will help engage undecided voters. Above all, it will help Mrs. Clinton warm up for the debates and nasty campaigning in autumn 2016.
Second, Mr. Sanders will challenge Mrs. Clinton from the left, and that will force her, from time to time, to move away from the center right where she is most comfortable. This journal has labeled both the senator and her ex-president husband as Rockefeller Republicans, and it stands by that assessment. The Democratic Leadership Council and its acolytes gladly abandoned the core economic values of the party in order to win elections. Those core values are at the heart of Mr. Sanders’ career, and he will force Mrs. Clinton to adopt language and even policies that are more in line with Democratic tradition.
Third, the challenge from the left will allow Mrs. Clinton to develop anti-left-wing credentials that she will need in the general election. It is ironic but certain that she will benefit from this challenge by staking out ground to the right of Mr. Sanders. The trouble in American politics now is that one must run to the extreme to win a primary but not so far to the extreme that one becomes toxic in the general election. Mr. Sanders is almost the ideal foil for her in this regard.
Moreover, someone has to be second on the ticket, and Mrs. Clinton may want to shore up the support from the left with a choice that doesn’t over-shadow her. Elizabeth Warren, in that case, does come second to Mr. Sanders.