Bern Baby Bern!

With apologies to NY Yankees broadcaster John Sterling, Bern baby bern!"

 

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has been making some inroads against Hillary Clinton.

My friend William Katz compares his effort to Senator Eugene McCarthy in 1968:

 

Many people like Sanders.  He has an appeal, in large measure because, unlike Clinton, he has a reputation for integrity and has a consistent point of view.  Remember that it was a virtually unknown senator, Eugene McCarthy, who helped bring down a sitting Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, in 1968. 

 

 I think Bill might have hit on something by comparing Sanders to Senate McCarthy's campaign against Lyndon Johnson. Another example is Howard Dean, another Vermonter. Dean entered the race and changed the dynamic. Because was younger and had been around this type, I understood his liberalism the moment I saw him. That brand of liberalism is about stances, attitudes and opinions. Sanders doesn't really represent it, but the people supporting him do. Martin O'Malley is there man.

 

Now, on to Sanders. He has integrity. I know, I know, what some of you readers are thinking but let me explain. Bill Katz and I know the tradition from which Sanders comes. It doesn't really exist anymore. Sanders is a pre-WWII Jewish socialist.  That socialism's time has passed, but there's well meaning honesty to that ideology.

 

Here's a clip of him confronting some Jew haters at a town hall. The clip is remarkable it shows Sander's thinking on the matter of Israel and the Palestinians and that even though he's a socialist he doesn't hate Israel and understands that Hamas is a terrorist group.

 

The man is never going to be president, but he is interesting, no?