Andrew Harnik/Associated Press Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. jokes with reporters as he leaves his bus to speak at a town hall at Santa Maria Winery in Carroll, Iowa, this month.

SHARE

By Michael Collins of The Commercial Appeal

WASHINGTON — When Keller Barnette started campaigning for Bernie Sanders about five months ago, the question he often got was, "Who is Bernie Sanders?"

Barnette never got discouraged.

He made campaign fliers. He worked the phones. He went to organizing meetings. He talked to anyone who'd listen about the wild-haired Vermont senator's background, what he stands for politically and how they could get involved in the political revolution he's leading.

Nobody asks him who Sanders is anymore. People are taking the "democratic socialist" senator and his campaign for president seriously now, especially after he crushed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in last week's New Hampshire primaries and came within a nose of beating her in the Iowa caucuses a week earlier.

"People know this is going to be a revolutionary campaign," said Barnette, 34, a self-employed accountant from Knoxville. "The question is do you want to be a part of the political revolution. And I think a lot of people are saying yes."

Across Tennessee, Sanders' devoted army of organizers and grass-roots volunteers – "Bernie Bros" and "Bernie-bots," as they're sometimes mocked in the blogosphere — sense the political winds are shifting in Sanders' direction since his 22-point rout of Clinton in New Hampshire.

For Sanders, the timing could not be better. Early voting started in Tennessee on Wednesday and runs through Feb. 23. The state's presidential primary is March 1.

The day after Sanders' victory in New Hampshire, Matt Kuhn's cellphone rang and rang and rang. All day long.

"It's getting to the point where it's tough to return my phone calls, which is a good thing," said Kuhn, a Memphis political consultant who is state director of Sanders' campaign in Tennessee.

Kuhn said the sudden surge of interest in Sanders is coming not just from young people who like his message of social and economic equality, but also from people who have been involved in Democratic politics for a long time. Many of them are women, he said.

"A lot of the establishment in Tennessee is really starting to take notice," Kuhn said.

Just in time to capitalize on the wave of enthusiasm, the campaign formally opened offices last week in Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville and will open two more next week in Chattanooga and Johnson City.

Each office will have three or four paid staffers and will allow the campaign to "connect the dots with the Bernie supporters that are out there," Kuhn said. Having offices in strategic locations across the state also will make it easier for volunteers to conduct phone banks and canvass on Sanders' behalf, he said.

Sanders has a lot of work to do in Tennessee, said Kent Syler, a political scientist at Middle Tennessee State University.

The most recent statewide poll on the race gave Clinton a sizable advantage — 47 percent of Democratic voters in Tennessee backed her, while just 15 percent supported Sanders. But nearly 26 percent remained undecided, which could provide an opening for Sanders. What's more, the poll was completed three weeks ago — before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries, which have reshaped the race.

Regardless, "Hillary Clinton had the advantage before the New Hampshire primary — I think she still has the advantage here," Syler said. "And it will take a lot of work on Sen. Sanders' part and some significant shifts in Democratic voting blocs in Tennessee for him to be able to win the state."

Deke Pope is doing his part to move those voting blocs in Sanders' direction.

Pope, 73, a retired furniture industry representative from Memphis, puts on his "Feel the Bern" pin every day and goes out and tries to convince other African-Americans that they should get on board the Sanders' campaign.

A child of the '60s, Pope participated in the civil rights marches and demonstrations of the era. He hears in Sanders' platform the same kind of language he heard coming from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Economic parity, equal pay for women, get big money out of politics — all of the talking points that Bernie had, I aligned myself with," he said. "So I said to myself, this is somebody I can support without question and get my friends and colleagues into as well."

Not all of his friends and colleagues share his enthusiasm for Sanders.

A professor friend got upset with him when he suggested that African-Americans had "surrendered their vote to Hillary Clinton without question, without even listening to what she had to offer as a presidential candidate, and therefore are not even giving Bernie Sanders an ear."

Still, Pope feels like there's movement in Sanders' direction in Tennessee. "I'm getting a lot more positive responses than I did 30 days ago," he said.

Priscilla Sager-Carr of Cordova hears echoes of her late father in Sanders. Like Sanders, her father was Jewish. He was also like Sanders in that he often talked in broad terms about doing good for his fellow man instead of pushing his religion or his beliefs.

"There's not a hateful word from him," Sager-Carr, 50, an administrative assistant at FedEx, said of Sanders. From the Republican side, however, "all I hear is fear, hatred, death and war," she said.

Moved by what she sees as Sanders' "genuine sincerity, his compassion," Sager-Carr started volunteering for his campaign last fall. She likes Clinton and will even vote for her if she's the Democratic nominee in November. But she sees in Sanders a candidate and an opportunity that doesn't come along often — one that, win or lose, already is reshaping American politics.

"What Bernie has brought out, this conversation he already has started, all these things and subjects and what he stands for — it's out there," she said. "We're not going to be able to turn back now and not talk about what Bernie has brought out. I consider that a triumph for Bernie even if he's not the candidate."