Bernie won the Dem. Presidential primary of the state he represented 86.1% to 13.6%.
Bernie was not born in Vermont and Hillary was not born in New York. However, Bernie did not move to Vermont to establish residency there so he could run for the U.S. Senate from that state. He moved there well before he ran for federal office because he wanted to live there.
He had also served the state as an outstanding, historic Mayor of Burlington. He was an independent because he did not want to be beholden to the big donors of the Democratic Party. The only people to whom he wanted to be beholden were the citizens of Burlington. He defeated Republicans and Democrats. Finally, Republicans and Democrats got together, figuring, if they joined with each other and jointly ran a single candidate, they could surely defeat Bernie. Nope. Bernie won again. His mayoralty transformed Burlington in many ways.
Then, he ran for House as an independent and won. In his first year there, he founded what was to become the largest caucus in both houses, namely, the House Progressive Caucus (now the Congressional Progressive Caucus). For its first eight consecutive years, Democrats elected him to chair it. He succeeded, as an independent, in writing amendments that became law. Again, neither Party managed to oust him. Bernie never challenged Senator Jeffords (another Vermont indie who caucused with Democrats) for his seat. However, when Jeffords announced he would not run again, Bernie ran for the seat and nailed it. In the Senate, he has also passed important amendments and important legislation.
For years, he has gotten not only his state's Democratic vote, even being the nominee of the Vermont Democratic Party's more than once, though he never even ran for that nomination, but he has also regularly received about 25% of his state's Republican vote.
Vermont holds an open primary, which I believe all states should hold if they value democracy. New York holds not only a closed primary, but a semi-rigged one. Anyone who was registered to vote in New York in October can vote only in the party in which they were registered way back in October. People who had never registered in NY, however, had until March 25 to register in NY for the first time. The semi-rigging was made nearly complete when DWS refused to schedule any debates until after the NY deadline for changing registration had passed.
I am sick of corruption. I am sick of rigging. I am sick of people who applaud those things when they think it helps their candidate and condemn them when they think it hurts their candidate. I prefer decency, consistency and principles.
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