Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders AP FILE PHOTO
CONCORD, New Hampshire—Written off by his opponents as a wacky socialist, Bernie Sanders was long seen as the foil who would drag Hillary Clinton farther to the left, rather than a real White House contender.
But with his decisive win in New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, the 74-year-old Sanders—the country’s longest-serving independent member of Congress—gave notice that his “political revolution” is for real.
An outsider like Donald Trump, albeit at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, the self-styled democratic socialist may be the eldest contender in the White House race but he has done the most to inspire passionate support among young liberals.
“We harnessed the energy and the excitement that the Democratic party will need to succeed in November,” Sanders told adoring fans at his campaign headquarters on Tuesday, looking ahead to the general election.
Income inequality
Outwardly serious—even friends call him grumpy—the senator from Vermont has spent a lifetime in public office addressing income inequality and fumes that the top 0.1 percent of Americans owns as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.
Bernie, as he is known to fans, calls inequality the great moral, economic and political issue of the times and demands campaign finance reform that would prevent billionaires from spending unlimited funds in propelling their candidates to the White House.
Sanders has run a progressive campaign calling for universal healthcare coverage, a $15 minimum wage, reining in Wall Street, free tuition at public universities, taxing the wealthy and pulling 27 million Americans out of poverty.
Childhood
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on Sept. 8, 1941, and brought up in a hard-working Jewish family that could never afford to move out of their small apartment, he has spoken of knowing firsthand the struggle for money.
His father was a Polish immigrant whose family was wiped out in the Holocaust. He attended a local school and a college, before transferring to the University of Chicago.
As a student, he became involved in the civil rights movement and took part in the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.
After graduating, Sanders worked on an Israeli kibbutz and moved to Vermont, the state next to New Hampshire, where he worked as a carpenter and filmmaker.
Elected mayor
In 1981, he was elected as mayor of Burlington, the state’s largest city, by a mere 10-vote margin and went on to win another three terms.
In 1990, he was elected to the House of Representatives as an independent for Vermont, taking his fight against inequality to Congress.
After 16 years in the House, he was elected to the Senate and is serving his second term after winning reelection in 2012 with 71 percent of the vote.
He registered as a Democrat last year and announced his presidential run. AFP