'Anyone Ever Seen Cocaine?' What We Found in the Archives of Bernie Sanders's Long-Lost TV Show.

[JoeOtterbein]

(Disclosure: the Politico article was written by this DU poster's daughter

[link:https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/05/03/bernie-sanders-burlington-tv-show-video-2020-226761|

What a forgotten trove of videotapes reveals about the man who rewrote America’s political script.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN May 03, 2019


ozens of children scurry on the screen across Ethan Allen Park in Burlington, Vermont, bobbing for apples and running three-legged races. It is a beaming July day, and they’re at a summer camp for kids who live in local housing projects. The video is washed in a yellow light, like a newspaper left too long in the sun. The year is 1987. Atop a wooden picnic table nearby sits a man, clasping a microphone with both hands as he hunches with his elbows on his knees like a camp counselor. He’s wearing gray slacks and a short-sleeved white button-down, and he looks like he’s been on this earth for far longer than a half-century, but he’s only 45.

This is Bernie Sanders, the city’s socialist mayor, and for whatever reason, he wants to talk about drugs.

snip

much more at link

[dewsgirl]

1. Fascinating. Bernie really does seem like he just has always been on message, nice to read about a

different side of him.
I love the part where the kid says, you look like someone on Back to the Future. LOL

[nolabear]

2. That video is thoroughly weird. Made me cringe and chuckle.

I can see the charm but I’d hate to have to be around him for very long. His agenda is so focused he doesn’t seem to see how odd it is to ask a five year old camp kid if she knows anyone who does cocaine. Props for trying, though.

[Tipperary]

3. Good read.

Thanks!

[highplainsdem]

4. Thanks for posting this, Joe! Fascinating article (and kudos to your daughter again).

The 80s-video Bernie Sanders seems quite eccentric though not quite as weird as some of his late-60s writings.

I do enjoy Sanders as a gadfly spurring debate.

[Gothmog]

5. I am glad that sanders will be vetted this cycle

No one took sanders seriously and so he was not vetted. Vetting is important I amso glad that sanders is being vetted this cycle https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/28/why-bernie-sanders-has-an-uphill-climb-ahead/?utm_term=.1b4f90c2a717

Finally, what happens when the oppo dump on Sanders comes? We have no idea, because it never happened in 2016. Clinton was so terrified of alienating his supporters and seeing them vote for Jill Stein in the general election (or not vote at all) that she tiptoed around him for pretty much the entirety of the primary campaign. That doesn’t mean that he’ll be destroyed when stories about the more colorful aspects of his history start cropping up, but there’s just no way to know.

Which is what we could say about the Sanders candidacy as a whole: There’s no way to know how it’s going to go. But he’s got his work cut out for him.

See also https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/19/politics/bernie-sanders-2020-campaign-donald-trump/index.html?utm_source=twCNNp&utm_content=2019-02-20T14%3A52%3A07&utm_term=image&utm_medium=social%C2%A0

2. How will he withstand more scrutiny and more attacks?
One of the secrets to Sanders' success in 2016 was that no one -- most especially Clinton -- thought he had any chance of going anywhere in the race. Clinton largely ignored him for the better part of 2015, allowing some problematic parts of Sanders' record for Democrats -- most notably his voting record on guns -- to go unnoticed. (When the race began to tighten, Clinton gently prodded Sanders on guns and health care.) Sanders, too, largely flew under the radar of investigative reporters for major news outlets who were busy looking into Clinton, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and others seen as more viable candidates. (That reality clearly benefited Donald Trump in the early days of the campaign, as well.)

Sanders will get no pass -- from either the media or his fellow candidates -- this time around. He is among the frontrunners -- and will be treated as such. His wife's time as president of Burlington College could well come up. And his opponents will do a deep dive into his nearly 30 years of votes as a member of the House and Senate. This is all very normal stuff in a campaign. But not for Sanders.

[aikoaiko]

7. Me, too, just as I like that Biden is being vetted as a potential president for 2020.

And everyone else, too.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended

Thanks for the thread JoeOtterbein.

[Politicub]

8. The keyword here is Burlington. Burlington is...

wonderful and weird and artsy and accepting and so many other great things.

This cable access show is a product of Burlington, much like picnicking on the banks of Lake Champlain and naked bike rides.

Here's the great thing about the series that is getting lost in this thread: Sanders meets with people where they are, and they ask him questions as he interviews them. He is accessible and real. This puts a point in the Bernie column for me, though he isn't in my top list.