The Story:
Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent who nearly derailed the Clinton campaign machinery in the early months of 2016, when he won several state primaries with a message of opposition to the “billionaire class,” is running again for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States.
The Announcement:
Sanders announced that he is again a candidate, on Vermont Public Radio, on Tuesday, February 19. In this cycle he enters as one of the front runners. He has the name recognition that most other announced candidates lack, and he has a network of activists around the country who have been waiting for this word.
In the VPR broadcast Sanders said, “We began the political revolution in the 2016 campaign, and now it’s time to move that revolution forward.”
Yet even among his admirers, among those who believe that he did move the Democratic Party leftward three years ago and that he did it and the country a service in the process, there is some sentiment that he is no longer the best carrier of the revolutionary message, that at 77 years of age he ought to let the revolution’s torch find younger fresher hands.
The Thing to Know:
The still-developing field of Democratic Party candidates seems to break down naturally into left and center, or socialist and pragmatist, repeating the Sanders-versus-Clinton dynamic of three years ago but without the one-on-one focus of the last time around.
