Bernie Sanders rolls out star proxies during impeachment

Stuck in Washington for the impeachment trial, Bernie Sanders sends Michael Moore and other stars to campaign for him in Iowa.

Michael Moore was about ten minutes into an angry, comic rant – complete with a denunciation of iPhone chargers and a demand that free marijuana be delivered to all by the US postal service – when a phone rang in the front row.

“We have a caller on the line!” the left-wing documentary maker announced. “He’s just getting out of jury duty.” A tingle of excitement rippled through the Englert Theatre, then developed into whoops, cheers and air punches as the 100-strong crowd realised the identity of the mystery guest. “First-time caller on the phone here,” Moore, 65, said. “Bernard from Brooklyn, is that correct?”

With just a few days to go until Monday’s Iowa caucuses, this is the peculiar, disembodied form of campaigning that sitting senators, compelled to stay in Washington for President Trump’s impeachment trial, have had to employ.

Michael Moore speaks at a campaign event in Perry, Iowa. Picture: AFP.

Bernie Sanders, 78, the frontrunner in the first nominating contest for the Democratic presidential candidacy, has not been in the agricultural Midwestern state since Sunday.

“I am here but I’d rather be there,” the senator for Vermont told the Iowa City crowd as his call was fed into the auditorium’s speaker system. “I am sorry that I can’t be with you, but we are having a trial for the impeachment of the president. So that’s keeping me a bit busy. I’m going to be very brief because I’ve got to get back to the Capitol.”

Well-known activists such as Moore, who are willing to expand a candidate’s reach by addressing rallies and geeing up campaign troops, are a mainstay of presidential politics – but the impeachment trial has made them more important than ever.

In Mr Sanders’s absence, he has been replaced by a rotating cast of backers known as “surrogates”, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the firebrand New York representative who has electrified the Democratic Party and is repeatedly referenced reverentially by Iowan members.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with Michael Moore at a rally for Bernie Sanders in Iowa City, Iowa. Picture: AP.

Celebrity supporters include Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, better known as Ben & Jerry, who handed out ice cream in the south of the state despite subzero temperatures. “When we learnt that Bernie was going to have to be in DC a bunch of us offered to drop everything to be here,” Moore said.

Not that Mr Sanders’s supporters at the theatre, who ranged from parents with small children wearing Bernie T-shirts to retired Iowans, seemed to mind. Before the main event Las Cafeteras, a band from Los Angeles, provided a warm up, leading the crowd in chants including “When I say people, you say power”, and “When I say tio [uncle], you say Bernie”.

In fact, Mr Sanders’s absence has been marked by a series of polls showing him with a commanding position at the top of the field in Iowa, although the most recent Monmouth University survey showed him two points behind Joe Biden in an effective toss-up with the former vice-president.

Kendrick Sampson, 31, a Hollywood actor and activist who has spent the week addressing events in the state for Mr Sanders, argued that the campaign was part of a broader left-wing movement helping to lessen the significance of the candidate’s absence.

He told The Times: “People like AOC who were emboldened by Bernie and the movement in 2016 are now out campaigning for him – that’s proof that the system is working with Bernie better than with any other candidate … the greatest thing about this campaign that I have not seen on any other campaign is that it is not about him. So it’s OK if he’s not here.”

Michael Moore at a campaign event at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. Picture: AP.

Bernie Sanders during a roundtable discussion at the Capitol. Picture: AFP.

Elizabeth Warren, 70, Mr Sanders’s main rival on the left of the Democratic Party, has also been stuck in Washington just as she tries to revive her campaign. A flash of momentum in the summer has faded and the Massachusetts senator is now firmly back in the chasing pack.

In her place Bruce Mann, 70, her Harvard professor husband, has spent the week touring campaign offices with their golden retriever, Bailey, to motivate officials. More conventional support has come from Julian Castro, a cabinet official under Barack Obama. Mr Castro, 45, was running for president himself but this month abandoned his campaign and endorsed Mrs Warren.

Not all surrogates have equal pulling power. An event for Mrs Warren headlined by Mr Castro on Wednesday at Cornell College, in the east of the state, drew a crowd of only about 25.

Miles Ross, 19, a sociology student, wore a “students for Warren” sticker and plans to caucus for her – but wanted to talk about another candidate. “I like Bernie,” he said. “I didn’t like him in 2016 because he took so long to defer to Hillary. That’s my mum’s idea – maybe I’m just following her. I know AOC has endorsed him. I really like her: she’s so great. I trust that if she trusts him he’s got to be great too.”

Amy Klobuchar, 59, the moderate senator for Minnesota, has not deployed her spouse while she is in Washington but her daughter, Abigail Bessler. Ms Bessler, 24, works for New York city council and her youthful social media savvy has made her a major part of Ms Klobuchar’s digital campaign. She is also hosting a series of “hot dish house parties” where supporters tuck into a Minnesotan casserole of minced beef, condensed mushroom and chicken soups and “tater tot” potatoes, prepared by campaign staff to the senator’s recipe.

The Times