Lauren Justice
Supporters in Madison cheer on Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, July 1, 2015.
I was wrong.
And like Jerry Orbach’s character in Dirty Dancing, when I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong.
A few weeks ago, I snidely said that Sen. Bernie Sanders' performance in the Democratic Party of Wisconsin straw poll was a fluke. I said the poll was a small cross-section of people and that Sanders probably didn’t have widespread support in Wisconsin.
Fast-forward to last night, and 9,000-plus Wisconsinites proved me wrong. The gathering was one of the largest rallies, if not the largest, of the 2016 presidential election thus far. Supporters came from all over southern Wisconsin. They were energized, they were passionate.
Tom Barrett and Mary Burke never had a rally like that.
I’ve always wondered why the strong anti-Walker emotions among progressives never translated into excitement for Barrett or Burke. I questioned the base’s dedication; I thought that it took a great speaker like President Barack Obama to fire up a Madison crowd.
Sanders isn’t a great orator. I’ve always enjoyed hearing him speak at Fighting Bob Fest, but he’s no Obama. However, what Sanders lacks in raw charisma, he makes up for in ideas and sincerity. Sanders got the whole crowd to cheer for something as wonky as overturning Citizens United. His speech treated his audience like adults and, judging by reactions, they respected him for it.
It doesn’t hurt that Bernie has almost half a century of activism to back him up. Contrast that to Mary Burke, who wasn’t even sure if she was a Republican or a Democrat before she worked for the Doyle administration.
Sanders was bold. In his speech, he proposed something that verged on a second New Deal. The crowd loved it. Shockingly, liberals like it when you propose liberal things. They seem to like those ideas more than they liked Burke’s measured, poll-tested support of raising the minimum wage. They liked it more than when Barrett proposed...you know, I can’t remember a single thing Barrett proposed any of the three times he ran for governor.
Wisconsin’s progressives are looking for a candidate to get fired up about. The Sanders rally and the return of Russ Feingold proves it. You don’t win a race with your base alone, but you don’t win it without them.
Maybe it is about time Wisconsin Democrats consider running a liberal for governor.
