22 Time June 17, 2019
Pretty good joke, he thinks. He is slumped in a window seat in
coach on a plane parked at Chicago O’Hare. He has about an hour
in transit to get the joke into his next speech. Before deplaning, he
pulls his hair forward, but only on the left, the side one may call
Bernie, as opposed to the more combed right hemisphere—Senator
Sanders. Off the plane. The selfie requests start. O.K., but quickly.
O.K., why not, sure. Ooh, was that a Macaroni Grill? Anyone want
to go in on a pizza with him? Sausage pizza, O.K. Then selfies with
the kitchen staff. Good people. Hardworking people. His people.
His speech for tonight is ready, but Sanders wants to scrap the
planned opening for his pretty good joke. Does Terrel— Terrel
Champion, his body man, who has mastered the art of knowing
when to talk to the Senator and when to leave him be—have the
printer? Of course. Last-minute checks about tonight. RSVPs? Good
shape—better than early 2015, when barely anyone knew him. A
woman at the gate wants a selfie, but Sanders is fixated on the print-
out of the joke. “Onnnnnnnnne minuuuuuute,” he barks. He loves
The People. People can be trickier.
The junior Senator from Vermont flies over the country he as-
pires to govern, with its crop circles and caterpillar-shaped sub-
urbs and community pools and rail yards full of shipping contain-
ers. Soon his silver SUV is rolling through Davenport, Iowa, past a
brick building with a sign for German mustard and a soon-to-open
hookah bar. The election is a year and a half out, but the crowd at
the venue is feverish. Men in boots just off shifts. Young people who
may or may not work in the gig economy and listen to the podcast
Chapo Trap House. A woman in a purple nurse’s uniform. Beefy
guys in trompe l’oeil camo.
He takes the stage and tosses off his blazer. He is taller in real life
than on television, though he shrinks by stooping. His cuffs aren’t
carefully folded once or twice à la Farm State Casual, but rather
jammed up his forearm. “Before I get into my remarks here in Dav-
enport,” he begins, “I did want to make a few comments.” But now,
instead of just launching the joke he worked so hard to print out,
he first warns them about it. “I wanted to tell you—I’m being funny
here, so don’t get excited—that I was a little bit apprehensive aboutcoming back to Iowa.” He reminds them how
President Trump had falsely linked wind tur-
bines, which are ubiquitous in Iowa, to can-
cer. “So I was sitting here wondering,” he
says, “if I come to Iowa, am I and my staff
going to get cancer?”
Running for President is like doing stand-
up. You try bits, see what sticks. The room
liked it, so the next morning the joke resur-
faces in Muscatine, again with a warning, be-
cause Sanders, who can be funny uninten-
tionally, is making an effort at some of the
performative aspects of politics he has long
sneered at. “I told a funny joke yesterday,” he
says to the audience, adding: “I try. I don’t
have the world’s greatest sense of humor.”
Several hours later, in Fairfield, he tries again.
It takes another day for Sanders to offer the
joke without advance notice.
On the way out of Oskaloosa, wind
turbines appear. A viral video opportunity.
The SUV carrying Sanders, the staff van
and the luggage- bearing minivan all
swerve to the side of US 63. Sanders, with
a few aides, prepares to cross the two-lane
highway. “Be careful!” he yells. It’s the kind
of Old World, survivalist caring Sanders is
capable of in public: Don’t die; Have you
eaten?; Remember your luggage; Don’t leave
your charger.
Now the Senator, 77, stands before the
wind farm in his gold-buttoned blazer and
slacks, looking like a traveling Rotary Club
speaker, facing a cameraman in yellow skinny
jeans who looks young enough to be his
grandson. He improvises, theatrically throw-
ing his hands over his ears, as if protecting
himself from the allegedly carcinogenic tur-
bine sound. “Oooohh, that noise,” he cries.
“Can’t think.” He takes his hands down. “Just
kidding. No noise.” He moves into a more se-
rious riff. The opener is funny, but his video
team finds it gimmicky. So they cut it.
Sanders first ran for office in 1972, cam-
paigning for an open Vermont Senate seat
on the Liberty Union Party ticket. He lost,
attracting 2% of the vote. One of his oppo-
nents was a Democratic state representa-
tive named Randolph Major. As Sanders
recalls in a memoir, Major invented a “bril-
liant publicity gimmick”: skiing around
the state to meet voters. Sanders later com-
plained, “Here I was, giving long-winded
statements to a bored media about theA Sanders rally in
Pittsburgh; as in 2016, his
following skews youngBernieSanderswantsto makea joke.