INDIANAPOLIS — When the Indiana Democratic Party convened its 2012 convention in Fort Wayne, party leaders like gubernatorial nominee John Gregg warned of an “extreme” and “radical” Republican party. But tucked away at the Democratic Party’s AFL-CIO luncheon was the keynoter, Democratic socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Sanders told 350 Hoosier Democrats, “Our job is to tell working people that we have got to stand together against the onslaught of big money or there is not going to be a middle class in this country.” He said workers must “fight back in a way that has been true of the labor movement since its inception. That is, we educate and we organize.”
It prompted then Republican National Committeeman Jim Bopp Jr. to propose an RNC resolution calling on the Democrats to officially call themselves the “Democratic Socialist Party.” Curiously, Gregg didn’t pose for a picture with the Vermont senator.
I wondered about the wisdom of inviting Sanders in 2012, thinking that it was odd at the time. Little did we realize it was harbinger for things to come. My next brush with Sanders came on primary election eve in 2016, when Sanders drew a crowd of 10,000 people at Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis. This was my first glimpse of “Bernie’s Army.”
It feeds off the same grievances that Donald Trump did in 2016: The systems are rigged against the common man. The Manhattan billionaire and the Vermont millionaire were feeding off the same energy, just 180 degrees apart across the political spectrum. It has become a microburst in the American political parties. Not a single Hoosier Democrat or Republican leader (other than Rex Early and Sullivan County GOP chairman Bill Springer) endorsed either Trump or Sanders, and yet both won the Indiana presidential primary that year with 53%.
Now, eight years hence, Sanders is rattling the U.S. Democratic establishment just as Trump did with their GOP counterparts. “Bernie’s Army” is a core of ardent supporters dedicated to ... him.
An Indiana Democratic operative with access to party voting rolls told me that Sanders drew in thousands of new voters in 2016. The danger in an “anybody but Bernie” scenario is that since that 2016 primary, most of those Bernie voters didn’t go to the polls again to support Sen. Joe Donnelly in his 2018 loss or vote in last year’s municipal elections. The danger for any Democratic nominee not named Bernie Sanders is that his army stays home in November. NBC reported that in 2016, some 12% of Sanders primary supporters voted for Donald Trump in November.
While President Trump and Republicans are giddy at the thought of facing Sanders this November, Jason Riley writes in a Wall Street Journal column, “Should he get the nomination, a Sanders victory in November is no more implausible than Mr. Trump’s was in 2016. The president has already demonstrated that a nominal member of a major party who has grass-roots support and is running as an outsider can win the White House. Mr. Trump had the luxury of running against the most unpopular presidential candidate in memory, and lightning won’t strike twice. Mr. Sanders is far less polarizing than Mrs. Clinton was.”
Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, deprived of the front running mojo in the wreckage of the Iowa caucuses after winning more delegates than Sanders there, then coming within 2% of nipping the Bernie bud in New Hampshire a week later (which would have crimped Berniemania for good), is now sounding the alarms.
“If you think the last four years has been chaotic, divisive, toxic, exhausting, imagine spending the better part of 2020 with Bernie Sanders vs. Donald Trump,” Buttigieg said at Tuesday’s South Carolina debate.
“The time has come for us to stop acting like the presidency is the only office that matters,” Buttigieg said of the scenario where the socialist Sanders wreaks carnage for down ballot Democrats. “Not only is this a way to get Donald Trump reelected, we got a House to worry about. We got a Senate to worry about.” Turning toward Sanders, Buttigieg continued, “And this is really important. If you want to keep the House in Democratic hands, you might want to check with the people who actually turned the House blue: 40 Democrats who are not running on your platform. They are running away from your platform as fast as they possibly can.”
Just as Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich were the final GOP barriers to Trumpism in 2016, Buttigieg, former vice president Joe Biden and another New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg are forming the bulwark against Bernie Sanders.
Biden is poised for a big win in South Carolina this weekend. Buttigieg has worked out a congressional district delegate scheme for the 14 Super Tuesday states next week where he is languishing in the polls. He hopes that when the presidential parade reaches friendlier Midwestern turf on March 10 and 17 with primaries in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois weigh in (Southwestern Michigan is in the South Bend media market), that will be enough to turn back the Bernie tide.
Stay tuned.
The columnist is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com and the CrossroadsReport.com. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.
