Whether independent Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will beat the former secretary of state for the Democratic presidential nomination, he already has taken Clinton by storm. Clinton, New York, that is.

Whether independent Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will beat the former secretary of state for the Democratic presidential nomination, he already has taken Clinton by storm.

Clinton, New York, that is.

In the spring of 1990, Hamilton College sociology chairman Dennis Gilbert invited Sanders — then a former Burlington, Vermont, mayor coming off a narrow defeat in his first bid for Congress in 1988 — to teach two courses at the college in Clinton.

More than a quarter-century later, as a recent poll showed, he was in a statistical tie with Hillary Clinton among New Hampshire Democrats. Gilbert recalled Sanders was a hit, his courses on urban sociology and social democracy well-enrolled.

“He didn’t try to force his ideas on students but he challenged them,” Gilbert said.

In the faculty lounge, too, the future presidential contender spoke his mind.

“He’d sit at lunch and he’d challenge psychologists on the notion of human beings, what is the psychology of human beings, what does it mean to be human,” Gilbert said. “He was an interesting guy to have around.”

Toward semester’s end, Sanders often went to Vermont on weekends to start working on another congressional campaign, one he’d win.

Gilbert took leave and signed on as a campaign staff member, a sometimes frustrating job when Sanders would make last-minute additions to take Gilbert’s pored-over position statements.

“You can guess what was quoted in the papers the next day, and it wasn’t anything I wrote,” he said.

Gilbert later joined Sanders on his congressional staff, key point in his life. It was working on Capitol Hill that he met the woman he would later marry, Nina Serafino, specialist in international security affairs at the Congressional Research Service.

Sanders’ campaign staff declined to comment or make Sanders available.

Now, Gilbert said Sanders considers himself in the mold of today’s European social democrats concerned with making government work for people.

“If we were in the 1930s or 1940s he’d be a Roosevelt Democrat. That’s really what he is.”

Most of all, Sanders left him impressed as an astute politician who woos many voters by speaking his mind.

“He shouldn’t be underestimated,” Gilbert said.

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