Can Vermont's favorite uncle catch on outside the state?

[struggle4progress]

By Matthew Dickinson, Voices contributor
MAY 4, 2015

... We Vermonters are used to seeing Bernie, shoulders hunched, white hair askew, marching grim-faced through our town in the annual Memorial Day parade or holding court in the local diner. He is our eccentric relative, the grumpy uncle who bends your ear every holiday picnic railing in his distinctive Brooklyn accent against the corporations and the 1 percent, oblivious to the mustard smeared on his rumpled shirt. “That’s our Uncle Bernie,” we say, smiling, before reaching for the potato salad. “It wouldn’t be a real holiday without him” ... Running for the Democratic presidential nomination, with the intense media spotlight and a much more diverse group of primary voters, is not the same as greeting voters at the annual Addison County fair. Through the years Vermonters have adapted to – even come to love – Bernie’s curmudgeonly personality, but it is not entirely clear how well his rumpled but lovable Uncle Bernie schtick will play on the national stage ... For starters, Bernie’s trade-mark “democratic socialism” likely does not have a very big constituency within the Democratic Party ... In any case, this isn’t the first time Bernie took a chance on making a fool of himself. In 1987, while serving as Burlington’s mayor, Bernie recorded an album of folk classics. Unfortunately, as Tom Lockwood – the musician who came up with the idea for Bernie to cut a record – recalled, “As talented of a guy as he is, he has absolutely not one musical bone in his body, and that became painfully obvious from the get-go…. This is a guy who couldn’t even tap his foot to music coming over the radio. No sense of melody. No sense of rhythm – the rhythm part surprised me, because he has good rhythm when he’s delivering a speech in public” ...

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Politics-Voices/2015/0504/Bernie-Sanders-Can-Vermont-s-favorite-uncle-catch-on-outside-the-state-video

[merrily]

1. He certainly seems to be catching on outside Vermont. Then again, he's

always been received well anywhere he speaks to the rank and file, including South Carolina. Odd the author of the OP article doesn't seem to know that.

So sorry to disappoint you.

[Paka]

2. Give up on the Bernie bashing.

We know you like Hillary and that's just fine. Just let those of us who want to support Bernie have a little space of their own.