Overflow crowd lines up to hear Bernie Sanders in N.H.

April Burbank | The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press

WARNER, N.H. — Bernie Sanders brought his presidential campaign back to New Hampshire on Saturday for the first time since the first Democratic debate, leading an event that featured his three grandchildren in Halloween costumes and some serious questions about gun control and police brutality.

Vermont’s independent senator who is vying for the Democratic presidential nomination spoke first to the overflow crowd of people who had failed to get seats and stood outside the packed town hall building.

A live band led a singalong of This Land Is Your Land as the seated crowd waited for Sanders. When the band left, attendees began to sing America the Beautiful.

The appearance launched the so-called “persuasion phase” of his campaign, in which staffers say Sanders is trying to draw a deeper contrast between his ideas and those of his opponents. It was also Sanders’ first New Hampshire visit since Vice President Joe Biden announced he would not enter the race, leaving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as Sanders’ only serious rival.

With Feb. 9's New Hampshire primary still months away, Sanders must convince even his supporters that he can go the distance.

“I don’t believe in my heart that he could run this country,” said Charles Evan of Newton, Mass., who said he and his wife, Phyllis, were nonetheless supporting the Sanders campaign to keep his ideas in public discussion for as long as possible.

"A lot of people we know really like him," Phyllis Evan said. "But then they say he doesn't really have a chance."

Sanders continued to push against the argument that he is unelectable.

“Nothing that I am talking about is Utopian, is pie-in-the-sky,” Sanders said. “Virtually everything that I am talking about is supported by the vast majority of the American people, And virtually everything that I’m talking about, and my hopes and dreams for America, are being done in one or another country around the world.”

Later, Sanders backed up his views on increasing the estate tax by harkening back to GOP President Teddy Roosevelt — “a great communist revolutionary,” Sanders joked.

Sanders largely stuck to the stump speech about income inequality, jobs and campaign finance reform that has served him since his May campaign kickoff in Burlington, Vt. But he has added to it.

Instead of talking about equality for all people, Sanders made a point to mention institutional racism. And instead of saying that the United States needs to fight climate change, he said that Republicans should stand up on the issue rather than act in fear of losing campaign donors.

As the event drew to a close, Sanders took a question about gun control from a 14-year-old middle school student who said he was uneasy about lockdown drills at his school every semester.

Sanders said he regretted that such drills are necessary but pointed to his support in 1988 and 1990 for prohibition on certain types of assault weapons and his current proposal for expanding background checks.

"From way back when, I took an unpopular position against the gun lobbies," said Sanders, who to some extent has reflected the gun-rights strain in Vermont politics and has been criticized for being weak on gun policy.

The question gave Sanders a chance to refine a statement on gun violence that was turned against him in the Democratic debate with Clinton: “All the shouting in the world is not going to … end this horrible violence that we are seeing.”

Clinton later implied that his was a sexist remark about her passion on the gun issue. In Warner, Sanders made sure to add three key words: “as a nation.”

“Sometimes my words have been mischaracterized,” Sanders said. “I have said that as a nation, we have got to stop shouting at each other on this issue.”

Sanders surged in New Hampshire polls during the summer as he drew massive crowds across the country. The latest average of recent polls by RealClearPolitics puts Sanders ahead of Clinton by 2.4 percentage points.

Karthik Ganapathy, a spokesman for the Sanders operation in New Hampshire, said the campaign has 12 offices and 53 staff members throughout the state.

A first-time Sanders event attendee, John Conant of Tyngsborough, Mass., was energized afterward.

“He pushed a lot of my buttons in the right way," Conant said. “I was very impressed that he seems to be a very well-spoken, educated person. He’s not talking down to us and went through a number of the issues, actually said some things, didn’t just rabble rouse.”

Sanders rushed from the 1 p.m. ET town hall in Warner to a high school gymnasium rally at 4 p.m. in Lebanon, N.H., where staff estimated more than 1,000 attended.

“The media thinks I do not have a sense of humor, so I’ve gotta tell you a joke. You ready?” Sanders said.

“My name is Larry David and I am impersonating Bernie Sanders,” Sanders said, referring to the comedian who portrayed him in a Saturday Night Live skit about the first presidential debate. “So there it is. I have a sense of humor. OK."

Sanders will air his first television advertisements in Iowa in the coming week, campaign spokesman Michael Briggs said. Clinton has been spending large amounts on advertisements for months.

The next Democratic debate is Nov. 14, two weeks away. Briggs said Sanders has not begun to prepare formally yet.

After the packed day in New Hampshire, Briggs said Sanders was spending Halloween evening in Vermont with his grandchildren and would take a break from Sunday television appearances.

Follow April Burbank on Twitter: @aprilburbank