I was incredulous at first, because the invitation was for an event scheduled the next day. “Is this right?” I thought. “Bernie Sanders in San Diego? But the California primary isn’t until June.” But less than 24 hours later, 20,000 people were clamoring to see the socialist who is running for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. (The next day, Wednesday, Sanders addressed an overflow crowd at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theatre.)
The campaign rented the San Diego Convention Center, but it was too small to accommodate the crowd—the main arena was approved for only 10,000 people. The doors were to open at 5 p.m. I arrived at 4:15, and it took me 20 minutes to walk the circumference of the convention center and follow a winding, doubled-back-on-itself line of “Berners” that stretched to the San Diego harbor. As I approached the end of the line, I found myself walking alongside a black high school student. We marveled at the sight of so many people. I was beginning to despair at the length of the line, but instead of expressing frustration or disappointment, she uttered these remarkable words: “It gives me hope.”
The other candidates begin their pitches with “I”; Sanders begins with “This campaign.” While Donald Trump proclaims, “I will take care of women,” Sanders says, “This campaign” will stand with women as they fight for their right to earn equal pay for equal work. The best line of the night came after the candidate noted that Wal-Mart employees are forced to use billions of dollars in public assistance because the corporation pays its low-level workers so poorly. Sanders exclaimed that it’s time for the Waltons, the family that owns much of Wal-Mart, “to get off [corporate] welfare and start paying their workers a living wage.” And the crowd goes wild.
Who would have guessed that a 74-year-old would be the hipster candidate of 2016? Who would have guessed that a man would be the most compelling option for so many women in a presidential campaign featuring a female candidate? Who would have guessed that a Jewish socialist would be the candidate of choice for the black activist class?
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