As members of Congress continue hammering out a bill to improve the Veterans Administration's beleaguered health care system, attention has focused on one man leading the charge: Bernie Sanders, Independent senator from Vermont and a self-described Socialist.
Sanders barely got 2 percent of the vote when he first tried breaking into Vermont politics in the 1970s, but now there's buzz that the man known simply as "Bernie" may be a presidential candidate in 2016.
"The cost of war is huge," he said recently during lunch at Henry's Diner in Burlington, Vt., where he rose to become an immensely popular mayor in the 1980s. "It's not just tanks and guns and planes. It's what happens to people's lives."
Sanders' frizzy hair may have gotten whiter since his mayoral days, but it could still use a comb. And when he opens his mouth, you don't hear New England — you hear Brooklyn.
He's also not one for idle chit chat. Even the most casual conversation relentlessly returns to the central idea that animates him: the wide gulf between rich and poor in this country.
"What is part of my DNA — something I never will forget — is just the stress in the family over money. Of my mother, you know, feeling that we just never had enough money to do what she wanted to do," Sanders said, referring to his childhood years in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
During his time as mayor, he created more affordable housing in Burlington, and stopped development on the waterfront to make it more accessible.
"And that's what Democratic Socialism is. It is essentially — bottom line — making government work for all of the people," he said.
Winning Over Conservative Vermont
Sanders is the only member of Congress who calls himself a Socialist. And if you're wondering how a Democratic Socialist differs from a Democrat, he'll point to the time he took to the Senate floor for eight and a half hours in 2010, railing against President Obama for supporting Bush-era tax cuts.
That's drawn him few fans in corporate America.
But to understand how Bernie Sanders has become perhaps the most popular politician in Vermont, go to a place you wouldn't normally expect to be friendly to self-described Socialists.
Called the Northeast Kingdom, this corner of Vermont is the most conservative part of the state. It's a lush and green region dotted with dairy farms.
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