“If I run it has to be done well,” Sanders said in an interview with POLITICO this week. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Bernie Sanders isn't so sure about this 2016 thing

Bernie Sanders hasn’t made any big hires for a potential presidential run. He doesn’t have the money he needs for a campaign and isn’t sure he can raise it. And he’s already sick of hearing about Hillary Clinton.

This is not a guy who’s ready for 2016.


The Vermont independent — a self-described democratic socialist — is fond of saying that he doesn’t wake up every morning hoping to become president. But spend some time with him, and it’s clear he genuinely doesn’t like talking about it. When he does, he’s apprehensive — and not just because of how it would affect his reputation.

“If I run it has to be done well,” Sanders said in an interview with POLITICO this week. “And if it’s done well, and I run a winning campaign or a strong campaign, it is a real boon to the progressive community, because I believe that the issues I talk about are issues that millions and millions of people believe in. On the other hand, if one were to run a poor campaign, didn’t have a well-funded campaign, didn’t have a good organization, did not do well, because of your own limitations, then that would be a setback for the progressive community.”

Sanders, 73, is one of the most liberal members of the Senate, a righteous missionary on behalf of what he says is a nascent political revolution against corporate interests he believes are harming the country. His recent speeches all feature statistics about wage stagnation, indignation at “the billionaire class” he says is derailing the democratic process, and calls for rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, providing universal health care coverage, raising the minimum wage and getting rid of tax loopholes for Wall Street. These also are the issues he prefers to talk about, at length, with the media.

Bring up presidential politics, though, and Sanders speaks softly, shrugs often and keeps his answers short. He shakes his head no when asked if he’s figured out whether to run as an independent or a Democrat. Instead of dwelling on his recent visits to early nominating states Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders instead brings up upcoming trips to California, Texas and Nevada. He also admits he hasn’t gotten far on the financial and staffing fronts.

“We have not really raised money,” he says. “You know, we have raised a little money, but nothing serious. Do we have, for example — I suspect that we do have the potential to raise a decent amount of money through modest donations on the Internet. Can I swear to you that that’s the case? I can’t.”

Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats, had earlier said he’d decide this month whether to run for the White House, but now says he might push back that deadline. The reason, his spokesman Michael Briggs says later, is that he’s focused on his work in the Senate, where budget negotiations will take up a large chunk of his time as ranking member of the chamber’s Budget Committee.

By this stage in 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama had already announced his candidacy. Like Obama, a Sanders presidential run would likely face the behemoth that is Hillary Clinton, the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nod.

Clinton, however, is not a subject Sanders cares to discuss, even though the recent imbroglio over her email usage during her time as secretary of state has made her vulnerable to attack.

“Why am I asked about Hillary Clinton every other day, about her emails?” he asks. “Do you know what — I can’t swear to you on this — last I checked, here in Washington, do you know how many calls I got from Vermont on Hillary Clinton’s emails? Zero. Yet I can’t walk down the hallways here without hearing about Hillary Clinton’s emails.”

Even when pressed on what policy differences exist between him and Clinton, Sanders bristles before eventually posing a series of pointed questions aimed at the former first lady.

“What are her proposals to rebuild a disappearing middle class and to deal with the very high levels of poverty?” he asks. “What are her proposals to create millions of decent-paying jobs in this country? What are her proposals to create a foreign policy that does everything it can to prevent us from getting into another disastrous war? What are her proposals to deal with the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street?”

Has Clinton come out strongly enough on those issues? Sanders is disappointed with the question.

“I don’t know,” he says flatly. “Call her up. I don’t know her number.”

Given an opportunity to create some daylight with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, another darling of the left who has a super PAC calling for her to run for president, Sanders largely demurs.

“I’m sure that there are no two people in politics who don’t have nuanced differences or different points of view on this and that,” he says, visibly bored with the question. “But I think, in general, Sen. Warren and I come from the same perspective.” He then tries, unsuccessfully, to end the interview.

Sanders, who served in the House starting in 1991 and joined the Senate in 2007, has made some moves toward running.

He has visited New Hampshire and Iowa multiple times in recent months, most recently a three-day, nine-event swing through the Hawkeye State in February. He will, weather-permitting, be back in New Hampshire this coming Monday. He recently launched a new campaign website, berniesanders.com, that could be used either for a presidential bid or a 2018 Senate campaign.

For a senator often dismissed as a freewheeling radical, Sanders has remarkable message discipline in sticking to speaking about his core issues. He’s also happy at every turn to excoriate the political media and Wall Street, knowing that he has no chance of appealing to the latter, anyway.

Tad Devine, a longtime friend and informal adviser, admits that Sanders doesn’t connect with the donor class.

“He has absolutely no rapport with the people giving him money,” Devine said with a laugh after a Sanders speech Monday at the National Press Club. “As a matter of fact, he’s spending most of his time trashing them.” Sanders’ Senate campaign committee has just under $4.5 million on hand. The committee raised more than $1.1 million during the 2014 cycle, while his political action committee, Progressive Voters of America, raised just over $535,000.

If Sanders is annoyed about 2016 talk, it’s because, he argues, the media and the parties focus on the wrong things, on campaigns instead of solving problems.

Democrats, he says, aren’t doing enough for workers. “I think the average working-class person does not perceive the Democratic Party as prepared to take on the billionaire class, the big-money [interests]to protect the interest of all workers,” he says.

Republicans, Sanders argues, are even worse. “What Gov. [Scott] Walker [of Wisconsin] and others are doing is just accelerating the war against the working-class citizens in this country, no question about it,” he says. “And the goal of that is to break unions, to lower wages, to make people work longer hours for lower wages to give them less ability to protect their jobs.”

Sanders isn’t modest about his past achievements in office. He spent a good chunk of his Press Club speech boasting about his accomplishments as mayor of Burlington, congressman and now senator. He is especially fond of the multibillion dollar bipartisan bill he drafted with Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs that passed last year.

He’s far more reluctant when it comes to touting his presidential chops.

Asked toward the end of the interview about whether he’d be the strongest voice in a 2016 race on working-class issues, Sanders was already getting up to leave.

“I think my record is pretty good,” he says. “Are there others who can do it better? I don’t know. Maybe.”