The Democratic presidential candidate who wouldn’t be caught dead kissing babies or flipping burgers at state fairs has figured out a way to engage in retail politics on his own terms — and it might be working
“He does retail, it’s fair to say, in his own way,” Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, said after a Q&A with rallygoers in Iowa this month. “Particularly when you’re campaigning and winning votes in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina and Nevada, it’s critical that he hears people and they hear him. It is truly a conversation.”
Though Sanders began holding smaller town halls and events months ago, his aides said he started making them more participatory at the beginning of August. The new format was on display during his 10-stop, three-day swing in Iowa last week. For instance, he was delivering his stump speech for about 15 minutes at a rally at his campaign office in Sioux City, Iowa — and then stopped.
“Let me take a break here and ask some of you a question,” he said. “I want people to tell me, if they could, tell me what they’re paying for health care right now. Anyone want to volunteer that?” All across the room, hands shot up. “I just got hit by a car,” one man said, adding that he owes $4,000 for the trip to the ER and lives on money from Social Security. “I got rejected from Medicaid,” a woman said, adding she has paid more than $5,000 so far this year in out-of-pocket expenses.
Sanders’ advisers said they understand that campaigning with a personal touch is critical in early caucus and primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire. But it isn’t always easy to persuade Sanders to put that knowledge into practice: For years, he had
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