Bernie’s First Political Revolution
In 1981, Bernie Sanders achieved the unthinkable — dethroning a deeply entrenched city establishment in Burlington, Vermont, with an upset victory in the city’s mayoral race that no one saw coming. His methods were familiar: a populist, working-class message, door-to-door grassroots organization, and a dogged refusal to bow to elite pressure.
Photo courtesy of the Bernie Sanders campaign.
“I think I’d make a good candidate.”
It had been a little over a week since Bernie Sanders decided to run for mayor of Burlington. Now, with these seven words, he was trying to ward off a rival challenger.
The man he was trying to persuade was Greg Guma, fellow left-wing activist and journalist whose own quiet plans to run had been unexpectedly outed by the Burlington Free Press a week before Sanders made his Halloween night decision to launch his own. The two had first crossed paths during Sanders’s 1972 Senate run, when Guma made the mistake of asking Sanders to tell him about himself. That meeting had concluded with Sanders brusquely telling Guma he didn’t want his vote.
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