Imagine that the much-touted Bernie wave builds and builds, that crowds of new voters turn out in state-after-state, and that he somehow edges Hillary Rodham Clinton in pledged delegates and that the super-delegates bend to popular will (as they would indeed most likely do so if Sanders won more pledged delegates. Imagine, next that Sanders is able to withstand hundreds of millions and likely more than a billion dollars in negative advertising redefining him for an electorate that actually knows little about him. Some ads will pull out his quotes about the Soviet Union and Cuba. Sander fans will cry foul but it won’t matter. Other ads, fliers, mailers, and robo-calls will inform the nation of a 6.2 percent payroll tax hike. Sanders enthusiasts will shout that it’s more complicated, but do they really think they will be able to carry the day?
In an case, suppose for the sake of argument, that Sanders upsets Hillary Rodham Clinton to win the Democratic nomination and then, even, more improbably, withstands a barrage of negative advertising the likes of which we will have never seen before, not just because of the amount of money that will be spent, but also because of how easily Sanders’s own statements and policies will lend themselves to distorted ads, and also because he really is an almost blank slate for the average voter. Suppose, he were to become President, would he have the slightest chance of realizing any of his major proposals?
The gap between Sanders’s own previous record and accomplishments and what he pledges to do is incredible. Various lists passed around the Internet between Sanders supporters tout his accomplishments. We learn about his athletic ability at basketball and track—that’s nice. As Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, a city of some 40,000 people, he won support, brought in minor league baseball, and lowered cable bills. He fixed streets and helped to revive the waterfront.
As a Congressman and later Senator, Sanders, his supporters repeat, became a master of amendments. Borrowing a term from a 2005 article, they have dubbed him the “amendment king” In this stage of our hero’s career, he not only made a wise vote on the Iraq war, but gained more money or more protection for worthy aims. The amendment king helped gain a little more money for low-income home energy assistance and for the National Guard among a list of worthy measures.
The most favorable story of Bernie Sanders depicts the ostensible political revolutionary, not as a master of crafting ambitious and complex legislation or of building coalitions for transformative policies, but as a kind of legislative tinkerer. Doubtless, Sanders fans will respond that I have left out his list of awards or details of other useful amendments, but what they are talking about: amendments! The “amendment king” is going to create a political revolution? Really? The best predictor of future success is past achievement, but Sanders is no Edward Kennedy. He has never been a giant of the House or Senate. At best, his title as the “amendment king” (and the term seems to have been used a lot more in the last few months than ever before) helps to protect Sanders from the charge that he is really mostly a likable gadfly when it comes to work on the national stage.
It does make sense to raise lofty goals or to anchor high, but the gap between Sanders’s own past record and what he now promises to do is absurdly wide. He sounds like a five minute miler who pledges to break four minutes and who when asked how he will do this answers that the roar of the crowd will somehow enable him to not merely break or shatter his personal record, but to run as if he is someone totally unlike himself. Why should we believe this is possible or likely?