Bernie Sanders is trying to build a national movement in his bid for the presidency.
But that movement faces a steep climb in Arkansas, where decades-old loyalties to the state's former first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, have translated into more campaign cash and likely more votes for her in the state's presidential primary in March, experts said.
Sanders is a U.S. senator from Vermont who was elected as an independent in 2007 and is running as a Democrat in the 2016 presidential election. He has paid campaign staff members on the ground in a handful of early primary states, including Iowa and New Hampshire. For other states, he's relying on local-level, grass-roots activists to carry the water of his campaign. Trey Weir, 24, of Little Rock is collecting pails, so to speak.
Among Democrats in other states, Sanders' popularity is growing. Weir, a University of Arkansas at Little Rock student, sees that as a sign that, like himself, others are dissatisfied with the "status quo" and the belief by many that Clinton is sure to be the Democratic nominee.
He sees Clinton's platform as being the same as President Barack Obama's administration: "More military spending, a constant presence in the Middle East," Weir said. "Much hasn't been done on tax reform and helping our most vulnerable citizens."
In early July, Weir decided to host an organization meeting for some like-minded Sanders supporters. After he announced it via social media, the event took off.
"In a day or two, the numbers became too big for my house," Weir said. "So we had a block party." It drew about 250 people, he said.
In late July, with Weir's help, 100 Sanders supporters packed the event room at the Oyster Bar in Little Rock's Stifft Station for a Web-based conference that Sanders used to kick off his 50-state, grass-roots campaign.
According to Sanders' campaign, more than 100,000 people attended similar gatherings in 3,500 locations, including several around Arkansas.
Sanders has announced his 50-state strategy, but with limited resources, Weir said, it will fall on local activists to organize a network and execute the plan.
While Sanders' supporters may have enthusiasm, they lack the numbers and the money to be competitive, at least in Arkansas, according to Karen Sebold, a political scientist at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Money is a sign of real candidate support, Sebold said, and when it comes to Democrats in Arkansas, Clinton is the only one reeling it in.
As of the most recent Federal Election Commission filings, Clinton's campaign raised $166,279 from Arkansas donors, nearly 23 times the $7,250 raised by Sanders' campaign in the state.
"It gives [Sanders] that small, grass-roots appearance," Sebold said. "The elites have a huge hand in deciding. ... They are all, kind of, going into Hillary's corner in terms of elite donors, the elites in the party, the bundlers, the people who have a hand in determining what will happen. ... [Sanders] has not attracted any of the elites, the big donors, and Wal-Mart is in Hillary's corner."
Robert McLarty, a partner at The Markham Group, said Sanders is another in a line of left-of-left-of-center candidates, like Howard Dean in 2004 and Dennis Kucinich in 2004 and 2008, who were able to reach and rally Democrats disenfranchised by the dominance of the party's more-moderate sect.
"It's group therapy, a lot of it," McLarty said. "[Supporters] like to have the attention on the issues they're talking about. ... In 2008, Obama spoke to that group pretty well, but he also built a broader coalition, and that's the difference."
McLarty's consultant group has done work for Clinton in the past, but McLarty said he hasn't had any contract work with her campaign yet this year.
In 2008, Obama used social media to organize support and reach out to young voters. Weir said Sanders' supporters will do the same, even more so, to compete in an environment clouded with money.
"It's the way of the future. Social media really helped Obama out and, without it, I don't think we'd have seen that campaign [success]. ... I think this one is more grass roots than the Obama one was, which was more top-down," Weir said. "There's a big Internet presence with a lot of creative people out there making these things and coming out with graphics, it's not coming from the [Sanders'] campaign itself, so that's interesting."
Sebold said the Obama parallels may lend some excitement to Sanders' campaign, but the climate in 2015 is far different from what it was in 2008.
"Obama was more moderate and able to bring more groups into his coalition," Sebold said. "[Sanders will] have a hard time. ... He's a self-identified socialist."
Sanders has called for higher taxes on wealthier Americans to help pay for better social services. He is campaigning for tighter regulation of the financial sector and is championing for organized labor. Sanders also has called for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.
Janine Parry, a political scientist at UA, said the Clinton machine -- and its decades of loyalty among party players and elected officials -- puts Arkansas fairly out of reach for the Northeasterner Sanders.
"He may as well be from Canada so far as most Arkansas voters are concerned," Parry said.
Still, McLarty and Sebold agree that support for Sanders in Arkansas is ultimately a good thing for Democrats.
"If anything, Bernie has the effect of sheep-herding for Hillary," Sebold said. "He's keeping them interested. He's getting the extreme ideologues interested in the process. Then they're more than likely to vote for Hillary [in the general election]."
McLarty said contested primaries that pit moderates against more-fringe opponents are good for the party.
"You want to energize your voters," McLarty said. "You do want a passionate base, and if they're bringing issues to the forefront, that's a good thing."
A Section on 08/24/2015