Jere Downs

@JereDowns

Wielding a scoop and the political muscle behind the ice cream company that bears his name, Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield drew a crowd supporting 2016 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and free ice cream downtown Louisville, Ky. Wednesday.

"Bernie supports the average person in the country. He is not supporting the super wealthy," Greenfield said. "He is not supporting the mega corporations and the corrosive influence of money in politics that has really undermined democracy."

Although he and co-founder Ben Cohen sold the brand to Unilever more than a decade ago for $326 million, Greenfield said he never took a turn right in his politics. In jeans, tennis shoes and a Bernie Sanders t-shirt, he traveled solo in a minivan to Louisville to stand in for the Democratic Socialist candidate in advance of Tuesday's primary contest versus Hillary Clinton.

"Ben and I have always been motivated by values," Greenfield, 65, said. "We always try and do that in our personal lives. We've been really lucky to integrate those values into a business."

Greenfield and Cohen hadn't campaigned for a political candidate before, but the ice cream company has produced a range of political pun-riddled flavors from caramel vanilla fudge Americone Dream, created in 2007 for comedian Stephen Colbert to the latest, Empowermint, to benefit the NAACP's campaign for voting rights.

Ben & Jerry's co-founder talks Bernie love

In all, Greenfield scooped 15 gallons of Americone Dream, Cherry Garcia and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough to fans of the U.S. Senator from Vermont lined up on Muhammad Ali Boulevard at Fourth Street.

Democrat Darrell Rhodes, 24, took a break from his job as an enrollment specialist at The Learning House, an online higher education provider, for a scoop of hope and Cherry Garcia.

"I have $64,000 in student loans from Western Kentucky University," Rhodes said. "I make enough to get by but I still live check to check."

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Sanders' proposals to make higher education and healthcare affordable to working class and middle-income Americans also motivated his co-worker Amy Holladay to line up for ice cream and show support.

"Sanders is the only guy who is talking about what I care about," said Holladay, a mother of two who said she works three jobs to break even while living with her in-laws and her husband in Louisville's East End. "I am a Marxist."

Milliner Olivia Griffin locked up her hat shop, the Mysterious Rack, on Fourth Street to walk down the sidewalk for the rally.

"I am a big supporter of Bernie Sanders," Griffin, 29, said. "I like his progressive platform, and I love Ben & Jerry's."

Greenfield said Cohen usually travels with him as they have stumped for the candidate across the U.S.

"Ben and I are big supporters of Bernie," Greenfield told the crowd when he took a break from scooping ice cream. "Ben wishes he could be here."

Politics and progressive business practices are integral to the ice cream company's brand.

In April, Greenfield and Cohen were arrested in Washington, D.C. as they took part in a rally with hundreds of activists on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. about big money in politics.

"The history of our country is that nothing happens,” Cohen said in a statement on Ben & Jerry's website, “until people start putting their bodies on the line and risk getting arrested.”

Besides the limited edition Bernie Sanders flavor, "Bernie's Yearning," the Vermont ice cream maker last year introduced Save Our Swirled to support awareness for climate change.

Jere Downs can be reached at (502) 582-4669, JDowns@Courier-Journal.com and Jere Downs on Facebook.