LOL…I’m sure there are plenty here who would disagree, heartily. I’ve even been accused of “pretending to be objective” in order to advance my views in a sneaky kind of “under-the-radar” way. From that point of view, your comment would just be evidence that my insidious plan is working. (MU-hoo-hoo-ah-ha-ha-ha-hah!)
At any rate, thank you, I do try to compensate for my own bias as best I can, at least when I am trying to actually analyze and understand something.
By the way, good point about the flip side for each of them. It’s almost as if between the two of them, they are one complete candidate, but each on their own is missing an important piece.
And I do think Bernie should talk about himself and his life experiences more – both for the reason you cite, and because I think it would be (mostly) helpful to him politically. The little bit that he has shared about his childhood and college years, for example, include some pretty compelling aspects (being brought up in an immigrant family in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn; being active in the Civil Rights Movement in college). He’s started talking about these aspects a little bit more recently (though not in any great detail) and I expect we’ll see more of that, at least in some of his ads, as he tries to quickly introduce himself and define himself for the many voters who have only recently started to pay attention to the campaign, and are wondering “who is this Bernie Sanders guy?”
Then there’s some time in his early life in Vermont that probably works more against him than in his favor, narrative wise – a “lousy carpenter,” producer of fringey educational filmstrips, a perennial third-party candidate who repeatedly lost big, living at times off of public benefits like unemployment (not that there is actually anything wrong with that…but not ideal politically), and I’m guessing no lack of silly or way-out political positions as we might expect from a strongly left-leaning “back to the lander” in Vermont in the early 70’s (if I have the timeline right).
But then we move on to his time as mayor of Burlington, which helps illustrate what kind of executive he has been when in an executive position. As it turns out, it seems he was both an extremely effective rabble-rouser and organizer (doubling voter turnout between his first narrow victory, and the next election, reshaping the city council from one that opposed his every move, to one that worked constructively with him), and, surprisingly, a skilled negotiator/pragmatist/compromiser who is widely credited for improving the delivery of basic services (potholes, snow-plowing, etc), AND balancing the budget, AND at the same time also pushing for (and in many cases achieving) some big policy goals (defeating developer plans for a privatization and luxury-condo-ization of the city’s waterfront, keeping that waterfront mostly public and helping to make it flourish as a magnet for tourists and locals alike, promoting worker-owned enterprises, including a highly successful grocery co-op, creating an innovative affordable housing program that is often touted as a model of affordable housing done right, etc, etc.)
I assume the reason the campaign hasn’t been emphasizing his tenure as mayor (despite the fact that his time as mayor is widely considered a big success by most folks in Vermont, including even many conservatives) is that Burlington is a small, mostly white city, which nowadays is relatively prosperous (in part thanks to Bernie and his successors), all of which makes it seem small and different and remote from the kinds of problems other cities face (which is obviously true to a considerable extent). And of course it was also quite a while ago.
In many ways, the Bernie Sanders story is one of the odder political odysseys for a recent presidential candidate, and contains some aspects that may not be favorable to him, but is also fairly compelling in the sense that some of his life experiences (especially growing up poor) help explain his priorities, what “drives” him, why he seems to have such an astonishing supply of “fire in the belly” on issues of economic struggle, income inequality, and in general, justice and fairness.