ernard Sanders' pol-

itical career began

like a fairy tale. He
had been in Vermont
for about a year, try'
ingto make a go of it
as a free-lance writer.
Itwas 1971 and Lib-
erty Union, the state's radical third par-
ty, had been established about six
months earlier. Sanders heard Liberty
Union was holding a meeting at God-
dard College in Plainfield, and decided
to attend. "I walked into the meeting
not knowing anybody," he recalled this
week, "and I walked out as the party's
candidate for U.S. Senate."
Despite that auspicious beginning,
politics - particularly winning elec-
tions - has not been easy for Sanders.
It took him 10 years, five elections and
hundreds of campaign appearances be-
fore he finally was able to savor the
sweetness of success.
During the past decade, in which he
ran twice for the Senate, twice for gov-
ernor and once for mayor, Sanders has
become awell known figure in Vermont.
His rumpled appearance and harried
style, his charismatic oratory and fiery
invectives against corporate America,
his championship of the poor and dis-
advantaged and espousals on behalf of
socialism, are familiar to the Vermont
electorate and have become woven into
the state's political folklore. Yet as
Sanders prepares to take over the helm
of Vermont's largest city, little isknown
about the man. Who is Bernard Sanders,
what has he been doing for the past 39
years and what. exactly, does he believe
in?
Sanders was born Sept. 8, 1941, in
Brooklyn, N.Y. His father was a Polish
immigrant who came to New York at
the age of 17and spent most of his life
as a paint salesman. His mother, born
in America of Russian parents, was a
housewife. His only sibling is his broth-
er, Larry, who is seven vears his elder
and today resides in England where he
is a social worker.
~
Sanders on Sanders
MEET THE lVIAYOB.
The Sanders lived ina small, six-story
apartment house in the Flatbush sec
tion of Brooklyn. Bernard grew up in
what he describes as "a solid, lower-
middle class" environment. "My father
was never without work, and there was
no anxiety about not having the basic
necessities of Ii fe," he says. "But money
- and the lack of money - was an ab-
solute anxiety in the household; there
never was enough:'
" 1 learned what havoc and pain is
caused by the constant worry over mo-
ney," he now says. "People who come
from money sometimes don't under-
stand that anxiety."
His parents, both of whom died by the
time he was 20, were not particularly
interested in politics or intellectualism.
He relied on his brother for his introduc-
tion to endeavors of the mind. "He had a
very great influence on my childhood,"
Sanders explains. "Books and intellec-
tual ideas were not topics of discussion
with my parents. My brother brought
books into the house. He introduced me
to poetry and brought Sigmund Freud
and political ideas home with him. He
was the gateway for me for many intel-
lectual ideas." Larry Sanders will fly
back from England next month to at-
tend his brother's inauguration as
mayor.
Although he described himself as a
"serious kid," Sanders' primary interest
as a youth was athletics. He was a
Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and was captain
of his high school track and cross-
country teams.
His first love, however, was basket-
ball. He fondly remembers that as an
elementary school student at P.S. 197
he played on the Brooklyn Borough
championship team. His failure to make
the varsity basketball team at J ames
Madison High School still ranks as "the
major disapointment of my life."
student of medicine. He therefore took
off a semester and "spent days and days
in the basement of the University of
Chicago library reading." Itwas then
that Sanders' intellectualism and pclit.
ical activism were truly sparked. "That
was probably the major period of intel.
lectual ferment in my life," hesuggests.
He read about psychiatry, politics, eco.
nomics and socialism, and entered what
he calls a "time of real searching."
At about the same time, he began de.
veloping concerns about the arms raCe
nuclear weaponry and racism. It wa~
the early 1960s and the civil rights
movement was being born in the South
but Sanders and his colleagues saw ugly
signs of racism in Chicago as well. He
became active in civil rights campaigns
against segregated schools and housing
in Chicago. "That was the first political
activity I undertook," he recalls.
Sanders graduated from the Univer-
sity of Chicago in 1964 with a degree in
political science. He got married and
headed East.
They h-adnever been toNew England
and knew not the slightest thing about
purchasing property; nonetheless, they
drove to Vermont, wound up in Mid-
dlesex, and bought an 85-acre parcel of
land for $2,500.
Back in New York Sanders found a
job as an aide at the Psychiatric Insti-
tute of New York, a hospital run by Co-
lumbia University. He remained at the
hospital for half a year, then took a po-
sition with the Headstart program
working with low-income youths. He
calls the work with Headstart "probably
the nicest job I ever had."
During the summers he would visit
Vermont. He and his wife had a son,
Levi (now an I l-year-old studentat Bur-
lington's Edmunds Middle School). The
marriage soon was dissolved, however,
and the Middlesex land was turned Over
to Sanders' wife.
In 1968he moved to Vermont full time
and took a job with the Vermont state
Department of Taxes doing research on
property taxation. That job ended
shortly, when then-Gov. Philip Hoffleft
office, and Sanders began working as a
carpenter. But in an effort "to make
some money," he returned once again to
New York and worked in a private
school.
His heart, however, was still in Ver-
mont. He came back for good in 1970,
bought a house in Stannard, and "be.
gan writing, trying to make a living as a
free-lance writer." (Earlier he had
worked on the Vermont Freeman, the
state's anti-war paper.)
His first big story as a struggling free-
lancer was an interview with George
Aiken that appeared in Vermont Life in
1970. Shortly thereafter, Sanders took
that fateful walk into the Liberty Union
meeting in Plainfield and his political
career was born.
anders was far from
an instant success as
acandidate for office,
picking up less than
2 percent of the vote
in whatwasaspecial
election for a seat in
the U.S. Senate. But
his political appetite was whetted, and
he ran for governor in the fall of J 972
under the Liberty Union banner. Again
he was given less than 2 percent of the
vote, but he was becoming
adept in the art of political stumping.
Though he was not yet taken seriously
by the great majority of the electorate,
he was given credit for being a skillful
speaker, acandidate capable of colorful
oratory, with a gift for making the com-
plex look simple and the fat cats of so-
ciety look unconscionably evil.
"If we wanted to," he said during a
1972 interview, "we could have decent
housing and free medical care and jobs
-- -.:
for everyone. It won't happen, because
the wealth and the money lies in the
hands of a few people who are not con-
cerned with the welfare of others. There
is no question that the United States
has the resources and capabilities to
wipe out economic hardship."
As he did throughout his career as a
Liberty Union candidate for statewide
office, Sanders harbored little real hope
of winning an election. Hewas in a race,
he once explained, because, "What the
two major candidates are saying is ir-
relevant regarding the problems facing
this country."
He often acknowledged that little
could be done in the tiny State of Ver.
mont to right the wrongs of society.
When he ran for governor in 1976, he
said during an interview in Enosburg
Falls, "I think wecan really accomplish
something here in Vermont with a Lib-
erty Union administration. But make
no mistake about it, the real problem is
national, and the more people ..focus:
their attention on Enosburg, the less
they'll look to Washington and the real
problems."
The real problems, Sanders was fond
of saying, were that all the major deci-
sions which affected citizens' everyday
lives were made in the nation's banks
and corporate board rooms.
"In America today, and in the Stateof
Vermont, a tiny percentage of the popu-
lation - certainly not more than 1 or 2
percent - make the basic decisions af-
fecting all of our lives," he said four
years ago. "These people own the banks
which control development policies,
own the corporations and factories, and
determine what kind of work we do and
how much we're paid, and own and con-
trol the media, which, to a large degree,
shapes what we think ...The average
worker is little more than a slave."
An avowed socialist, he continuously
cried out against the profit-making mo-
tive in America.
g "It's absurd," Sanders said in one
z campaign, "that corporations and mil-
~
v, lionaires should make profits out of
~ human needs."
He became a leader of Liberty Union,
serving in the mid-1970s as, at varying
times, the party's chairperson, co.
chairperson and coordinator.
He became such an eloquent and im-
passioned speaker that audiences of all
political stripes began listening and re-
sponding to him. He not only could work
an audience of unionists to a frenzied
pitch, he also could win kudos from a
Chamber of Commerce gathering" in
Burlington, despite representing and
espousing socialistic concepts which
were obviously anathema to the group.
uring his four races
for state office as a
Liberty Unionist,
Sanders called for
public takeover of
utilities, a guaranteed
minimum wage, the
~~~~~~~~", abolition of compul-
sory education, and a radical revision of
the nation's tax structure.
Through itall, his theme was that the
working class deserved a greater share
of the country's wealth and decision-
making power.
By 1976, when he ran for governor, he
and other Liberty Union candidates
were afforded the opporturu ty to partie-
ipate in most candidate forums and de-
bates with their Republican and Demo-
cratic opponents.
Sanders made the most of this chance.
His prowess as a public speaker and his
refusal to opt for the politically expe-
dient won him respect not only from his
supporters but also from his adversar-
ies. His aim during the 1976 election,
Sanders said, was "to bring working
people together."
Again, however, he was able togarner
only about 5 percent of the vote, and
after the election, his role in the Liberty
Union began to wane. He continued as
a free-lance writer, and began to create
educational film shows and curricula,
often discussing history from a non-
traditionalist, socialist viewpoint.
Sanders became embroiled in a battle
with the University of Vermont's public
television station after the station re-
fused to allow him to broadcast a pro-
gram hehad prepared on Eugene Debs,
the late American labor leader.
By 1977Sanders realized that his goal
of having the Liberty Union galvanize
Vermont's working class had failed.
"The function of a radical party, to my
mind, i s very simple," he said when an-
nouncing- that he was leaving Liberty
Union. "It i s to create a situation in
which the ordinary working people take
what rightfully belongs to them."
Heacknowledged that Liberty Union
had been unable to accomplish that
goal. But in a parting' shot, he berated
"the thieves who own the telephone
company and the private electric corn-
parries (who) continue to rob the people
of the state blind," the profit-making
bankers and corporation heads, and the
"moronic garbage on television."
In one of his rare public statements of
the last few years, he gave a warning,
one which henow will have to deal with
for the first time not as a mere citizen.
butas the top official in the state's Iarg-
est and most prosperous community:
"It is my opinion ...that ifworkers do
not take power in a reasonably short
time, this country will not have a fu-
ture."