From time to time, I will pluck from our NBC News video archives moments that have shaped our political culture today.
By now, we’re used to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has announced that he’ll make a second run for the presidency, dominating the headlines. Most polls show him near the top in the Democratic race, and it seems at least possible he’ll be able to enlarge his coalition enough to actually win the nomination this time.
It can be easy to forget just how far into the political mainstream Sanders has journeyed over the course of his career.
Almost 40 years ago, he was a fringe character operating on the margins of Vermont’s ever-quirky political world — the founder of a third party, the Liberty Union, who’d run and lost four statewide campaigns, never receiving more than 6 percent of the vote.
Then, in early 1981, he launched a campaign against the mayor of the state’s largest city, Burlington. Running as an independent, Sanders benefited from pent-up frustrations with the incumbent, Gordon Paquette, and won the initial count by 22 votes. Paquette demanded a recount, which shaved a dozen votes off Sanders’ margin but not enough to reverse the outcome. For the first time in decades — and just months after Ronald Reagan’s sweeping national victory in the presidential election — a New England city would be governed by someone who called himself a socialist.
Sanders’ victory brought him into the national spotlight for the first time. A UPI story explained that Sanders had “downplayed his radical philosophy” during the campaign and “traded his jeans…
