8/11/2019 Second Wind for the Sanderistas | Vanguard Press | Mar. 8, 1987

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S E C O N DW I N DF O R T H ES A N D E R I S T A S

By Pe ter Freyne

Mayor Bernie Sanders' solidvictory in Tuesday's elec-

tion left Burlington progres-sives ecstatic, Democrats

crushed and perplexed, and Republicansnodding knowingly behind silent smiles.When the dust cleared following thelong anticipated one-on-one showdown

between Sanders and Dem ocrat PaulLafayette, it was clear that the Progres-sive Coalition, the political movementSanders started six years ago, had sud-denly accelerated like a marathon run-ner catching a second wind, sprintingto victory by a wide margin.

Not only did Sanders knock offLafayette in handsome style-winning

by more than 10 percentage points-bu t new faces on the progressive teamwon big victories at the ward level.

8/11/2019 Second Wind for the Sanderistas | Vanguard Press | Mar. 8, 1987

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Champagne for Sanders

BERNiE

C Oil til/lied from page 1

" W h a t w e h a v e s h o w n ,"Sanders told his jubilant sup-por ter s Tuesd ay nig ht, "is tha tafter s ix years of being theonly independent progressiveg o v er n m en t i n t h e e nt ir e

United States of America, notonly are we not gettingweaker-we're getting

s tr-o n g er !"The blaze of victory was

also fueled by the fact that theDemocrats, whose aldermanicb i ds w e n t u p in s m o ke i n t h e

heat from the progressives, in-c1ude some nf the bitterestopponents of Sanders ' administration . In addition toLafayet te, Democrat RickSharp was once again deniedelective office by Ward 2v o te rs , w h il e n e xt d o o r in

Ward 1, Alderman Jim Rowellwas knocked out of office byProgressive Coalition candi-date Sharon Bushor.

In Ward 3, "the bloodythird," newcomer Tom Smith,with just three years residencein Burlington, trounced Dern-ocrat Dan Ryan, who hadboa sted of h is fam ily 's cen tur y-old roots in the neighborhood,and Republican Paul Robar .

"The fact that they werea b l e t o w i n with n e wco me rs, "said Univeristy of Vermontpol it ical sc ient ist Garr isonNelson, " is a real testament

to the breadth of the organi-zation." Nelson noted that thebig gest stumb ling blo ck for theSanderistas to date has beentheir inability to develop a"grooming process" to bringnew candidates up through theranks in the way the major par ties do . Tuesd ay' s res ult sindicate the Progressive Coa-lition has jumped that hurdle.

Many Democratic Partyleaders seemed s tunned bytheir defeat. Lieutenant Gov-ernor Howard Dean called theo u tc o m e "hard to u n d ers tan d ."

H e s a id he w as " v e ry s u r -pri sed " by the pro gre ssiv es'aldermanic victories as wellas the need for a runoff elec-t ion in his own Ward 5 (alsothe home ward of Sanders,Lafayette, and GovernorMadele ine Kunin) . "Bernie' seffect," said Dean, "is a littlelike Leahy's effect," a refer-ence to last November's Dern-ocratic triumphs on a ticketheaded by US Senator PatrickLeahy, who won re-electionin a landslide.

Kunin, who endorsedLafayette and campaigned with

him briefly, said she was "dis-appointed Paul lost. It was an

uphill battle." Kunin turnedbac k San ders' energ eti c ind e-pen dent challe nge in las tNovem ber's guberna tor ial rac e,but she rem ain s a frequent tar -get of Sanders' political jabs."No doubt," she conceded, "he'sa force" on Vermont' s poli ti -

cal landscape.Sanders ran up 6,901 votes

to Lafayette's 5,594. That's thesecond-highest vote total he'sr e ce iv e d i n f o u r r a ce s f o rmayor- 55 .2 per cent -and hecarried every ward in the cityexcept Ward 4. Even in thatward's rapidly expanding bed-room neighborhoods Sandersdid better than he's ever done,holding Lafayette to a 450votevictory. Meanwhile in histraditional Old North Endstronghold, Sanders ran up analmost 1,500-vote majority.

Sanders attributed his vic-tory to the fact that most peo-pie in Burlin gto n are ple ase dwith the job he's doing, whilehis opponent failed to offer vot-ers a clearly different visionfor the future of the city. Hea ls o c red i t ed an " enorm ous "effort by countless volunteerswho s tuffed envelopes , madephone ca lls and knocked onthousands of doors.

Ward 6 Republican Alder-man Fred Bailey-swhodid nots e ek r e -e le c ti on - w a s o n e o f the few who wasn't at all sur-pri sed by Tuesd ay' s ele cti on

outcome. Ward 6 voters pickedanother Republican to replaceBailey: Paul Sutherland.Sutherland, apparently equallyrelaxed about the contest, spentelection day in Florida withhis wife and children. Butdespite the Republican's easy

victory in the aldermanic elec-tio n , th e s am e v o ter s g av e ev enstronger support to Sandersin the mayoral race.

"Suffice it to say Bernie'sdone a decent job," said Bailey."His record had a lot to dowith i t. " But Bailey held out

the possibility that Lafayettecould have squeezed outa vic-tory had he gotten out of thestarting blocks quicker follow-ing the jam-packed Democraticcaucus that drew 1,000 partymembers to the BurlingtonHigh School auditorium inJanuary.

" Ther e w as a w indow of opportunity Paul had after win-ning the nomination," saidBailey, "a two-week periodwhere the undecided voterswere going to look at himclosely." But during those two

weeks Lafayet te laid low.Then, when he finally did con-front the public and the media,he s tumbled. He got hi t withthe "inarticulate" label, andin some circles his competency

.was questioned.

"Admittedly Paul does notimitate William JenningsBryan," said Bailey, "but I thinkvoters look beyond that. It wasthe content that was more im-por tan t tha n the de livery . Thewhole point was content," saidBailey, who added thatLafayette's reliance on beinga hometown-born-and-bred

a l t erna t i v e t o Bern ie w as n ' tenough.

Last November , Sandersreceived just 22 percent of thec it y w id e v o te a s K u n i n c a r-l ied the Queen City. OnTuesday, his 55.2 percentshowing indicates that there

was s trong support for Sand-ers among those voters whoconsider themselves traditionalDemocrats.

"What Bernie is doing iswhat a lot of Democrats shouldbe sup portin g," sai d PoliceCommissioner John Burchard

of Ward 4, a UVM sociologypro fes sor . "Hi s pol icy is righton in terms of the small person,the disadvantaged, the poor

peopl e who are stru ggling. Herepresents those people, andto me that 's what the Demo-cratic Party should be all about.T h e r e 's a m e ssa g e h er e ," sa i dBurchard.

A nother mess age w as de-livered by the grassroots organiz ing e f fort the progress ives

pu t int o act ion . Sanders ' cam-pa ign ma nag er, Jim Schu-macher, boas ted that tbey

really turned out the vote.In Wards 1 and 6, whichi nc lude t he U V M campus aswell as Trini ty College andChamplain College, Schu-m acher s a id t he p rog res s iv eswere able to bring out a lot of s tudents and get them " in -volved in the political process."In Ward I, noted Schumacher,the student vote was especiallyimportant: Previous races in d io

cated that without it, the Dem-ocrats would hold sway. By10 a.m. Tuesday, Sanders cam-

pai gn vo lun tee rs were knock-ing on dormitory doors, and

van loads of students werewhisked to the polls. Accord-ing to Schumacher, "it was thehighest s tudent turnout s ince1983."

Over in Ward 2, said Schu-macher, 10 campaign workers

were on the s treet by noonand a dozen more hit the pave-ment during the afternoon toget out a big vote. Sanderscarried the ward by better thantw o-to-on e.

It was a similar story in Ward3, said Schumacher, where thepro gre ssiv es dug in aft er the

appearance of many Lafayettes ig n s i n w i n do w s a n d f ro n t

yards in January. "Bernie puta n en o rm o us a m o un t o f ti m einto Ward 3," said Schumacher,

who also credi ted the hardgrassroots organizing work ofaldermanic candidate TomSmith . "He's been very act ivein the neighborhood and startedrunning in December."

In Ward 4 the progressivesdidn't expect victory. Tbey justwanted to shrink Lafayette'swinning margin . { (We started

voter identification threew eek s b e f o re any w here e ls e ,"said Schumacher. The effor tpai d off as Sande rs won

almost 44 percent of the. vote,his strongestever showing in

the ward.In Ward 5 Lafayette bad

bee n exp ected to do well. Asan a1d~rman there he had wonalmost 70 percent of the voteeven in 1985 wben Sanderscarried the ward in the mayor'srace. On Tuesday i t was al-most a dead beat as Sanderssqueaked to victory by a sin-

gle vote, 10411040. Sanders'

coat tai ls and the fact that thealdermanic contest was a three-

way affair left Democratic can-didate Nancy Chioffi jus t ahandful of votes short of therequired 40 percent, forcing arun-off against Sanders-backedpro gre ssiv e Ma ry Ben tley.

Ward 6, said Schumacher," w a s th e s ur p ri se ." T h e re a

strong student turnout coupledwith Republican support wonthe day for Sanders.

"You bave six to eight weeksto identify your supporters,"said Schumacher, "and ' then

you get 12 hours to get themto the polls."

For Lafayette, a paintingcontractor, the defeat may reomove him from Burlington'spo liti cal ba ttle fie ld for som etime to come. "What PaulLafayet te is going to do is go

back and pa int for now andthink abouttbe rest of it later,"the defeated mayoral candi-date said about his future plans.Lafayet te recal led a point in

bis life no t too ma ny yea rsago w hen a b id f or mayor o f Vermont's largest city seemeda fantasy. '1 never thoughtI'dbe ma kin g my caree r be ing a

po liti cia n," he sai d.Bernie Sanders, on the other

hand, has made quite a career

out of being a pol it ician and asuccessful one at that. "I thinkwe can say we won an incredi-ble vic tor y," sai d Sanders . "W ebav e go t to be an exam ple tothe res t of the United Statesof America that a grassrootsmovement s tanding up andfighting for world peace, fight-ing for social justice, fightingfor economic democracy, for the rights of all people rather

than just the very r ich, is anidea that is as American asapple pie ...made with Vermontapples. "

HAYES

continued front page 5

newspaper reporter, and I'm

will ing to take the oath withrespect to that, the press sayingI 've been to bed with JudgeWheel ," said Hayes . He alsodenied having any basis to indiocate that Hill or Gibson " is

having sexual relations withW heel o r ever had . I heard arumor 11 years ago about Ius-tice Hill," said Hayes. "Andthat's all it turned out to be."

Hayes told Richards that heconsidered the whole affair "anattempt to topple me from theSupreme Court . .. 1think his-tory will look back on theevents of the las t year and i twil l speak of a gut less Bar that never came to the defenseof the judiciary, the most vul-nerable of all our institutions.I think it will speak of a judi-cial Conduct committee that

was stampeded by newspa-per sto ries int o thi s inv est i-gation, most of which is ab-solutely groundless. And Ithink it will speak of prorni-nent Vermonters gett ing together in an at tempt to ern-barras s, in partic ula r, thi sJustice, for whatever motive.And I think when all of thepla yers are know n, it wil l bevery interest ing indeed ."

This week Hayes continuedhis recovery f rom surgery inthe intensive care unit at Mas-sachusetts General Hospital

in Boston.