Mike Sion

Special to the RGJ

Dick Van Dyke has been voting in presidential elections since casting his ballot for Harry Truman in 1948. But until this year, the last time the Television Hall of Fame actor actively campaigned for a White House contender was in 1968, for anti-Vietnam War Democrat Eugene McCarthy.

Now the 90-year-old Van Dyke —still acting in small roles in movies and TV shows, and still quick with a genial one-liner — finds himself stumping for Democratic contender Bernie Sanders.

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“He’s sounding an alarm about something I’ve worried about for the last 30 years, or since World War II, really: the stranglehold that big business has on this country,” Van Dyke said Thursday night, before hosting a “Bands for Bernie” concert featuring local music acts at Studio on Fourth, 432 E. Fourth St.

It was the fourth and final Thursday-night rally at the club, preceding Saturday’s first in the West Nevada Democratic caucuses. Van Dyke — who shot to national fame in the 1960s with his TV sit-com “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and roles in “Mary Poppins” and other blockbuster movies — introduced bands before their sets. Jazz-blues trio The Grups, alternative-rock band CRUSH, soul/hip-hop performer T. Lee Walker, singer-songwriter Eric H. Andersen and singer-songwriter Christopher Wyatt Scott all played at the free show in support of the Vermont senator.

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Van Dyke traveled from his California home to Reno to emcee the event and stump for Sanders after the candidate phoned him. “He’d heard me speak about him and called me up and said, ‘Get over here,’” Van Dyke said.

The white-haired, debonair actor was happy to.

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“Woodrow Wilson, in 1913, said there’s an invisible force running the country, and he blamed the banks and the corporations and the insurance companies. And since then it’s only gotten worse. Ike (President Dwight D. Eisenhower) warned us about the military-industrial complex. Jimmy Carter, in an interview recently, said he couldn’t get anything done (as president) because of the power of the lobbyists. It’s at a place where the election is almost a little charade they let us go through. I think the thing is rigged. It’s been brought up so many times before, but nobody ever listens. And somehow, Bernie got their attention.”

How did he manage to get voters’ attention?

“I don’t know,” Van Dyke said with a laugh. “He’s got a fire in his belly, there’s no doubt about that. The rest of the candidates act as if the problem he brings up doesn’t exist. And for god sakes, they’re afraid to say so.”