HUNKA HUNKA BERNIE LOVE: Kitsap caucus-goers swoon over Sanders

Published 11:01 am Saturday, April 2, 2016

Supporters of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders packed the house at Safeco Field — and then caucus sites across Washington state — as the U.S. senator from Vermont claimed 72 percent of Washington’s delegates in last week’s Democratic caucus.

Bainbridge Islanders came out in force for Sanders at the end of one of the most intensive weeks of presidential campaigning that Washington has seen in decades.

Over the span of a week, Sanders held multiple rallies that attracted thousands, while fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton had rallies across Puget Sound and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea, campaigned for the former U.S. secretary of state at “Get Out The Caucus” events in Spokane, Vancouver and Tacoma.

Sanders drew much support from Bainbridge, where islanders have been actively campaigning for him for the past year.

In caucuses Saturday, Sanders easily won at every venue on the island over Clinton. He won a total of 106 delegates (102 alternates) on Bainbridge to Clinton’s 64 (62 alternates), according to Katherine Woods, chairwoman of the Kitsap County Democrats.

Sanders claimed nearly 62 percent of Bainbridge’s delegates.

In Kitsap County as a whole, Sanders found even stronger support, winning 72.5 percent of the available delegates. He won 631 delegates, while Clinton had 238.

State party officials were still tabulating the results of the caucuses this week. At stake is 101 pledged delegates that will be based on the Washington caucus results; most are expected to go to Sanders.

Officials said they expected at least 200,000 people at the March 26 caucuses — potentially rivaling the record turnout of 250,000 set in 2008 —  and noted more than 150,000 had pre-registered for the caucus by 7 a.m. Saturday.

Woods, of Kitsap County Democrats, estimated that more than 10,000 people came out to caucus in Kitsap.

Last week’s flurry of campaign appearances by the two Democratic candidates kicked off with a visit by Clinton to the union hall just south of the Boeing plant in Everett on March 22.

Speaking to a crowd of a few hundred packed inside the hall for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Lodge 751, she touted her support of the aerospace industry and took a few jabs at Sanders and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

On Trump, Clinton gave a deft, shrugging impersonation of the real estate mogul and his lack of specifics on policy, and said she was eager to provide her own policy details “because I want you to hold me accountable.”

And on a day that began with news of a terrorist bombing in Brussels, Belgium that killed 32 bystanders, Clinton also took aim at Trump’s vow to build a wall along the country’s southern border as she called for air strikes against ISIS and fighting the terrorist organization’s efforts to recruit volunteers on social media.

“How high does the wall have to be to keep the Internet out?” Clinton asked.

Clinton followed the meeting with a roundtable discussion at the Puyallup Indian Reservation where she collected the endorsements of tribal leaders from across the state — including Leonard Forsman, chairman of the Suquamish Indian Tribe — and ended with a standing-room-only rally at Rainier Beach High School in Seattle.

Sanders, by contrast, held six rallies in Washington state over the past week, with the biggest at the home of the Seattle Mariners, Safeco Field. His campaign estimated the crowd, which filled the bottom of the stadium between first and third plates, at 15,100. Lines of supporters, eight or more deep in places, ringed the stadium before the crowd was let in.

The last Seattle stop for Sanders drew many from Kitsap County.

Andrew Lopez and his mother, Karen Boyles,

were among the Sanders supporters on the 2:05 p.m. March 25 ferry into Seattle. Both had taken the day off from work to attend the rally.

The pair, who live in Poulsbo, were both carrying signs they’d made for the event.

Lopez’s sign said, “End the corruption – vote Bernie” with a “$ Hillary” on the bottom, while his mother’s sign featured a sketch of Sanders’ now-iconic hair-and-glasses caricature atop the phrase, “Bernie Love.”

Lopez and Boyle were on their way to the rally, they said, to help make history.

“I know Bernie’s probably not going to be president, but I definitely support him,” Lopez said.

“He’s been fighting the same cause for so many years. We relate to him more; the working class,” Boyles added.

“He just feels like the more honest candidate. And I’m really hoping he can change things,” she said.

Lopez, 21, said he would skip this presidential election, his first, if Sanders is not the Democratic nominee.

“It’s Bernie or bust,” he said.

His mother agreed.

“I’m just not interested in any of the other candidates,” Boyles said.

Still, her son added that he wasn’t optimistic that the man long viewed as an underdogin the race would win the party nomination.

“I feel like the system’s rigged for Hillary Clinton to win,” he said.

“It’s the same thing that’s just been going on; the same politicians. Nothing’s going to change.”

Stacey Swindle and her son, Brandon, a senior at Bainbridge High, said they were also pulling for Sanders — and Sanders alone.

Stacey Swindle said their family had recently moved back to the Northwest, and to Bainbridge Island, from the South.

She recalled the enthusiasm for Sanders she’d seen while attending a rally at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City; a rally that drew 6,000 in red state Oklahoma at the end of February.

“I think he is honest, down-to-earth, with a strong record,” she said of Sanders.

Clinton, not so much, she said, adding that the former U.S. senator from New York would not get her vote if she becomes the Democratic nominee.

“I don’t feel like I can,” Swindle said, adding that she would write in Sanders’ name on her ballot.

Debbi Lester, a former Bainbridge mayor and councilwoman, said she was also going to the rally for history’s sake.

It was her first one since 2008.

“The last time I went to a rally was the first run with President Obama and I had actually taken my children out of class,” Lester recalled.

“And to this day, my kids are like so thankful.”

She said she heard about the rally from her daughter, who asked, “Are you going to feel the Bern?”

“Yes,” Lester said, adding that she has been a Sanders supporter since 2008. She lauded his ethics, integrity and consistent voting record.

His message deeply resonates, she added.

“It’s justice. It’s social justice at the end of the day,” Lester said.

If Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, though, she said she won’t sit out the election.

“I can’t do that,” she said.

Bainbridge caucus results

Bainbridge High

Bernie Sanders: 47 delegates, 47 alternates

Hillary Clinton: 26 delegates, 25 alternates

Uncommitted: 1 delegate, 0 alternates

Blakely Elementary

Bernie Sanders: 23 delegates, 23 alternates

Hillary Clinton: 15 delegates, 15 alternates

Sakai Intermediate

Bernie Sanders: 16 delegates, 12 alternates

Hillary Clinton: 10 delegates, 9 alternates

Wilkes Elementary

Bernie Sanders: 20 delegates, 20 alternates

Hillary Clinton: 13 delegates, 13 alternates