(A disillusioned former aide from the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign told NewsSkunk how the hangover from an incident in 2016 prevented Sanders from winning a massive victory in the 2020 Iowa caucus, potentially denying him the momentum needed to win the presidential election. – ed)
According to Monty (not his real name), internal polling at Sanders headquarters showed the then 74-year-old upstart was trending towards a decisive victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Iowa primary. Had Sanders defeated Clinton decisively in Iowa, many pundits believed her support would have cratered, and Sanders would have gone to win the Democrat nomination for president. The same theory held true in the 2020 primary – if Bernie won decisively in Iowa, he would win the Democrat nomination. In the end, Monty believes Sanders was not defeated by political rivals, but rather by overly excited citizens at local diners.
The Sanders campaign deployed a well tested Iowa campaign tactic: showing up at local rural diners and personally meeting potential caucus attendees. Polling showed that each citizen who met or witnessed a political candidate at a diner or restaurant would tell 28 people whom they knew about the celebrity sighting. So, the Sanders campaign often had Bernie dine at a local restaurant after delivering one of his fiery speeches.
The conversation in the restaurants was typically related to Sanders’ stump speech: the evils of Wall Street and corporations, the promise of free college tuition and healthcare, and the attacks on millionaires and billionaires. Many underemployed and economically struggling attendees enjoyed hearing about how Sanders would make the richer subsidize the poorer. Energized by the speech, some decided to have the richest man in the restaurant pick up their tab. That person typically turned out to be Bernie Sanders.
Dine-and-dashers were not the only people stiffing Sanders. Waitresses began making it a habit to add $15-$30 to each tab. When the Sanders group would protest, the waitress would typically state that she heard Sanders believes waitresses should make a minimum of $15 per hour. Upon hearing this, Sanders would fume and argue with the wait staff. This usually occurred before he found out about all the people who added their meals to “Bernie’s tab.” “Moochers!!!” was often the loud response upon hearing this revelation.
If that were not enough, the typically frugal Sanders would also start complaining about the Iowa sales tax. “These taxes are killing us!” he would often wail.
Monty said that while campaign staffers would try to calm their irate leader, Sanders would ignore them, stand up and take a headcount in the diner and recalculate the bill using a calculator. Not knowing who paid and who did not, an imposing security employee would be assigned to walk through the diner asking everyone contribute $37 each to cover the tab, an amount which, coincidentally, matched the average donation to the Sanders campaign.
As the campaign moved into the late summer, Sanders pollsters reported a sharp drop in his popularity. Focus groups unveiled that many potential voters were put off by stories they heard of Sanders complaining about fellow Iowans “who want to mooch off of rich people,” overpaid waitresses, and high taxes. The pollsters initially suspected this was the result of false rumors spread by the Clinton campaign because there was only one actual witness for every 28 people familiar with an incident.
Although Sanders did narrowly win the 2020 Iowa caucus, it was not the devastating blow needed to provide the required momentum. According to Monty, campaign officials were able to predict this result months earlier when they noticed no citizens would talk to Bernie in any of the buffet lines.
