Still a maverick, Sanders aims for the US Senate

BRATTLEBORO -- In the stuffy basement of a senior center on Main Street, Representative Bernard Sanders was jabbing his forefinger in the air, railing against some favorite targets.

Gas prices are sky-high while oil companies reap record profits, Sanders told the crowd of about 200. A ''disastrous" prescription drug law is set to go into effect, he roared. There is no end in sight to a misguided war in Iraq, he charged. And President Bush is trying to dismantle a program that Sanders calls a model for the good that government can do.

''Bush's efforts to destroy Social Security as we know it is based on his extreme right-wing ideology and his desire to bring billions in profits to his campaign contributors," Sanders said on a recent afternoon, his Brooklyn-tinged voice rising with each broadside. ''The immorality of giving tax breaks literally to billionaires, then cutting back on Medicaid, on disability needs, on the needs of our veterans -- that doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

Sanders, an avowed socialist who is the only Independent in the 435-member House of Representatives, is used to being the underdog. His us-against-them brand of economic populism has propelled the rumpled veteran of 1960s radical politics toward electoral success that seems unlikely for a man who looks more like a woolly college professor than a slick politico.

Now, after 15 years as Vermont's sole House member, Sanders is the early front-runner in the race to succeed Senator James M. Jeffords, the Republican-turned-Independent who is not running for reelection next year because of health concerns.

And where Sanders once blasted long-serving incumbents as ideologically bankrupt, Republicans are targeting him as a symbol of all that is wrong with modern liberalism. The GOP is planning an aggressive campaign that will paint him as a career politician whose rhetoric outstrips his accomplishments -- and who reflects the values of Manhattan and Hollywood more than Montpelier and Hubbardton.

''This man is proven to be an ineffective extremist," said Jim Barnett, chairman of the Vermont Republican Party. ''We're no longer talking about one out of 435. We're talking about a very powerful position, as one of 100 in the United States Senate."

Sanders said he looks forward to a campaign where he can focus his leadership on issues such as importing cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and his firm opposition to almost everything on the Bush agenda.

''This will be a referendum on whether or not Vermonters want to support the Bush agenda, or they want somebody who will go down there and vigorously oppose it," Sanders said in an interview.

Still, Sanders has always made an easy target with his self-described ''independent socialist" positions: universal healthcare, higher taxes on the wealthy, and cuts to defense spending. National Republicans would love to win back the seat that cost them control of the Senate with Jeffords's defection in 2001, and would relish a victory in the home state of Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

One of Vermont's wealthiest residents, software company founder Richard E. Tarrant, is seeking the Republican nomination with a personal fortune that can easily obliterate political spending records in the state. Its popular Republican lieutenant governor, Brian Dubie, is also considering a run for the seat.

Sanders, who turns 64 on Thursday, hardly looks senatorial. Tufts of thinning snow-white hair often stick up on the back of his head, and his big-frame glasses are three decades out of style. At the town meeting in Brattleboro, sweat soaked through the back of his shirt, and his tie poked below the back of his collar. Yet, starting with a run for mayor of Burlington in 1981, Sanders has built a formidable political organization, uniting liberal transplants from other states with working-class residents of the bigger towns and even conservative-leaning pockets of the Northeast Kingdom.

The man who lost six statewide races before winning his first House race in 1990 is now so strong a contender for the US Senate that national Democrats are not supporting a candidate of their own, out of fear that the left-leaning vote would splinter and give the seat to a Republican. (The supportive Democrats include Dean, who once said he left his ballot blank rather than vote for Sanders in House races, but now says that a Sanders victory would be ''a win for Democrats.")

''Bernie has been able to capture the sense of fighting back, the David versus Goliath thing, and it works for all types of communities in the state," said Garrison Nelson, a political science professor at the University of Vermont. ''I've been stunned, but he's a phenomenon. It's 'Bernie.' "

Winifred Vogt, a retired teacher from Dummerston, said she respects Sanders for declaring himself to be a socialist, regardless of the baggage such a label brings. ''He's a rarity, a real straight shooter," said Vogt, 76. ''He doesn't waffle. He fights for Vermont. But more than that, he fights for people in the whole country."

Sanders said he looks forward to the higher profile he would enjoy as a senator. There is the extra staff, the larger number of committee assignments, the ease with which a single senator can offer amendments on the floor -- and, of course, the right to unlimited debate. ''Get a lot of bottles of water in there," Sanders said.

Yet some Vermonters allow that they may have a different set of standards in mind when they consider Sanders for the Senate instead of the House. Frankie Gibson, president of the Brattleboro chapter of the AARP, is a registered Republican who has voted for Sanders in House races and spoke glowingly of his efforts to preserve Social Security at the town meeting in Brattleboro. But Gibson said she will wait to see who the Republicans offer as a candidate before deciding whether she can support Sanders this time around. His predilection to oppose the president at every turn may not be right for the more influential post of senator, she said.

''Sometimes I think he tends to be a little alarmist," said Gibson, 75. ''He can be too negative toward the president. I'm an American, and proud to be an American."

Tarrant, at this point considered the most likely GOP nominee, declined to comment through a spokesman. The chairman of the board of IDX Systems Corp. of Burlington -- and a 1965 draft pick of the Boston Celtics -- has said he is prepared to spend at least $1 million of his own money, and others have suggested that he may chip in as much as $5 million.

Sanders has never spent $1 million in a race, though he says his goal for the Senate campaign is to raise $5 million. He will have the help of some of the nation's most prominent liberal groups, which have lacked an ideological soul mate in the Senate since outspoken left-wing Democrat Paul Wellstone of Minnesota died in a 2002 plane crash.

MoveOn PAC has pledged fund-raising help, and an initial e-mail appeal to members netted a quick $136,000 for Sanders in April. What he cannot match in dollars Sanders says he will make up for in organizing, with a pledge that every front door in Vermont will receive at least one visit from someone in his campaign.

And though he looks at polls that show him running far ahead of his possible challengers, Sanders still sees himself in a tough fight. ''Based on my record, certainly corporate America does not want me in the United States Senate," he said. ''It'll be whether someone who's worked very hard for 16 years can be beaten by someone who's never cast a vote in his life but has an endless supply of money."

Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com