Tully: Here’s why some Hoosiers love Bernie Sanders

They showed up in their Bernie Sanders for president T-shirts, eager to spread the progressive gospel about a surging candidate who most of us, not long ago, thought would play a cameo role in the 2016 elections.

That role has clearly been expanded. Understanding why means understanding so much of what is driving a uniquely compelling and unpredictable presidential election year. The reason, 30-year-old Cherish Davis of Indianapolis told me, “is because Bernie doesn’t have all the ties to special interests. Hillary is more establishment, and I think all of us are fed up with the same old, same old crony stuff.”

Fed up. That pretty much says it all. Fed up on the left and the right. Fed up with anyone who seems to have been a part of the system. Fed up and looking for something new. In this case, something new means a 74-year-old sitting U.S. senator.

“Bernie has inspired so much enthusiasm and hope,” Julie Edwards, a 48-year-old Irvington resident, said. “Now that people have seen how he was able to challenge the establishment (in Iowa), it’s going to spread like wildfire.”

It, of course, is the fiercely loyal support that many have for Sanders, a Vermont senator and self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” who has turned Hillary Clinton’s once-clear path to her party’s nomination into a treacherous one. The two candidates nearly tied in the Iowa caucuses Monday, and Sanders appears certain to win in New Hampshire on Tuesday. We will have to wait to see whether support for Sanders continues to spread like wildfire, or any other kind of fire, but it’s clear that he is the candidate who has most grabbed the hearts of left-leaning voters.

That’s particularly true with younger voters, with voters who have been looking for a champion to challenge corporate special interests, and with Democrats who believe their party’s leaders, from Barack Obama on down, have seldom drawn a clear enough line between themselves and Republicans.

“Bernie speaks to us,” Davis said.

Edwards and Davis met me at a Downtown coffee shop Tuesday just before helping other supporters drop off thousands of petitions needed to put Sanders on Indiana’s May 3 primary ballot. We talked about Sanders’ appeal and message as I tried to get a better sense of what had driven many loyal Democrats from the perceived safe choice (Clinton) to a candidate many political observers consider too far outside the mainstream for a November electorate.

The underlying message was the same one that I’ve heard so often from conservatives this election year (deep frustration with party leaders and insiders who too often cave to a broken political system).

Both Edwards and Davis referred repeatedly to the Wall Street money that floods the campaigns of members of both parties, including Clinton’s. They talked about bank bailouts and the lack of accountability for financial executives whose recklessness played such a role in the nation’s financial crash eight years ago. They spoke of the deep anger on the left over trade pacts many believe have hurt American workers. They contrasted tax loopholes for those with connections to long-stalled efforts to increase the federal minimum wage.

“Our government is not working for the citizens, and it hasn’t for a long time,” Edwards said. “I am sick and tired of it. And almost all the politicians in office today are part of the problem. They are taking money from Wall Street, and it’s hard to be part of a solution to a corrupt system if you are taking money from that same system. Bernie is someone who was not corrupted once he got in office.”

The most consistent message I’ve received from Donald Trump supporters in recent months is that “he doesn’t owe anyone anything,” and so he’d be more willing to disrupt the political system in Washington. It’s a powerful refrain at a time of tremendous voter frustration, and Sanders’ supporters say the same thing. His constant thrashing of Wall Street and his reliance on small-dollar contributions and grass-roots support perfectly mesh with a level of hostility toward the financial sector that is as fierce as it’s been in a long time.

“I think people are just to the point where we feel that we have no other option,” said Davis, a mother of four who said her husband works multiple jobs but that the family is still hurting financially. “Bernie speaks to hope and to at least the chance for change.”

So much about success in politics is about timing, and it appears that Bernie Sanders has perfect timing. If he’d run for president in 2008 or 2004, or just about any other year during his long career in political office, he would have likely been a back-of-the-pack footnote.

Not this year. Not in 2016.

Not when millions of people on both sides of the aisle have turned their backs on political figures who might have been dream candidates in previous election cycles. Not when millennials have joined the political arena in huge numbers and when many are eager for a candidate willing to campaign boldly from the left, as Sanders has, on issues such as climate change, free college tuition, Wall Street reform, immigration and taxes.

I asked Edwards and Davis about my doubts that Sanders could keep a lot of the promises he is making. (At least he’d try, they said.) I pointed to polls showing that Clinton continues to hold a sizable national lead (once people realize Sanders has a chance, they said, that gap will narrow even more). Then I asked if they really thought moderate voters in states such as Ohio and Florida, voters who are so critical to winning a national election, would ever support a socialist for president.

“If you believe in schools, in roads, in hospitals, in Medicare and Social Security — if you believe in those things you are a socialist,” Edwards said.

I get that message, but it’s going to be a hard one to sell. The label of socialist will likely be a bridge too far even for many voters who agree with Sanders’ policies, and, remember, political history is filled with primary election darlings who couldn’t expand their appeal beyond their base.

Yet, this wild election season has more unpredictable than any I’ve seen, so who knows what will happen in coming months. So far, pragmatism hasn’t exactly been the story of the campaign.

This much is clear: Sanders, with his powerfully populist and progressive message, has taken up residence in what had been a vacant space at the highest level of American politics, and he has connected with voters in a way that Hillary Clinton has not. At a time of deep cynicism toward politics, he has convinced many that the political system can be challenged.

That in itself is quite a feat.

You can reach me at matthew.tully@indystar.com or at Twitter.com/matthewltully.