WaPo: Dem Voters See Sanders “as a Weapon Against a Governing Class that has Failed Them”

From The Washington Post, via MSN:

“The party has shifted to the left, and I don’t think many of the more traditional, legacy leaders of the party got it,” said Andrew L. Stern, a longtime former president of the Service Employees International Union. “The good news for Bernie Sanders is, he’s like a broken clock. He’s been in the same place for 35 or 40 years in terms of his positions, and the times have found him.” 

A headstrong, 78-year-old senator, Sanders has galvanized his supporters with an unwavering commitment to their shared cause and forceful critiques of the “billionaire class.” They in turn see him, despite his unorthodox persona, as a weapon against a governing class that has failed them.

On electability:

Sanders’s dominance among young people, his supporters say, signals his ability to energize this potentially important demographic in November. 

“Disregard electability,” said Isabel Lozoya, 19, a Texas State University student who drove for an hour on Saturday to see Sanders campaign in San Antonio. “It should be about picking somebody you really believe in as opposed to somebody you think other people will believe in.” 

Steve Rosenthal, a veteran Democratic labor strategist who has been focused on mobilizing working-class white voters in a trio of battleground states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — said it would be foolish to discount Sanders’s appeal there. 

“The establishment, which I guess I’m a part of after all these years, seems to know as much about electability as a donkey knows about calculus,” Rosenthal said. “We always get it wrong. . . . The voters are going to tell us who’s electable.”