A march for Bernie Sanders, a call to run as an independent

Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders march on Fourth Avenue toward Westlake Center in downtown Seattle on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2016. Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders march on Fourth Avenue toward Westlake Center in downtown Seattle on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2016. Photo: GRANT HINDSLEY, SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: GRANT HINDSLEY, SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 45 Caption Close A march for Bernie Sanders, a call to run as an independent 1 / 45 Back to Gallery

A crowd of 400 supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders marched through downtown Seattle late Saturday afternoon, close to the moment when TV networks called the South Carolina Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton.

The Clinton landslide was not enough to douse the "Bern" in Seattle.

The newly arrived Sanders campaign team, given four weeks to organize for Washington's March 26 caucuses, was presented with an immediate challenge.

Militant supporters want to take the campaign outside the Democratic Party and keep it going even if Clinton prevails over Sanders to win the party's nomination.

If "Clinton and the establishment" win the nomination battle, we "should not allow our movement to be imprisoned in the two-party establishment," Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, a member of the Socialist Alternative movement, told a rally at Westlake Park.

The movement should keep "Bernie running all the way to November, if not as a Democrat but as an independent ... as the basis of building that new party for the 99 percent," cried Sawant.

Jess Spear, who ran as a Socialist Alternative candidate against House Speaker Frank Chopp in 2014 -- receiving less than 20 percent of the vote -- underscored the message.

"We've got to run independent left-wing candidates all across this country," said Spear, adding a moment later: "That's what a political revolution means: It means overturning the established parties."

At the moment, however, the "revolution" must operate in the Democratic Party.

Sanders has drawn some labor support locally. "When members have a right to vote, they are with Bernie," said Paul Bigman, a Musicians Union activist who is organizing Sanders support.

Ex-Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is backing Sanders, saying in a Facebook post: "On the issues of inequity and climate, I believe he is the candidate most dedicated to fundamental change."

But Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., are firmly in Clinton's corner. U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who chaired President Obama's 2008 campaign in the state, also has come out for the former secretary of state.

Obama blew away Clinton in the 2008 caucuses. The Obama campaign sent out a crack organizer from Iowa, and spent weeks building support. The Clinton campaign was a slapdash, last-second effort.

Not so in 2016. Clinton has had staff on the ground here for about 10 days. Supporters are already meeting around the state.

Joan Kato, who directed Sanders' campaign in Nevada, has just arrived to take charge in Washington. She took on the gender issue -- head on -- at the Westlake rally.

"It's not enough to be a woman," said Kato. "I want someone who will fight to see we have free college tuition. I want someone who will fight to see that we have single-payer health care."

Washington has given support to Democratic insurgencies dating all the way back to the anti-war campaigns of Sens. Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy in 1968.

The state's left-wing activism once caused Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign manager, James A. Farley, to declare: "There are 47 states in the union, and the Soviet of Washington."

A crowd of 8,000 people showed up at Westlake in 2003 for ex-Gov. Howard Dean's "Sleepless Summer" tour. But Sen. John Kerry used Washington's caucuses to put a final nail in the coffin of the Dean campaign.

Washington has already helped put Sanders' campaign on the map, with a crowd of 15,000 who showed up at the UW's Hec Edmundson Pavilion last August to cheer the Vermont senator. He had a crowd of 29,000 in Portland the next day.

The Socialist Alternative movement has become a tapeworm in the Seattle body politic. With the charismatic Sawant out front, it has used a variety of causes -- from minimum wage to Shell's Arctic drilling fleet to landlord evictions to oil trains -- as agitation opportunities and organizing tools.

Spear and Sawant were delivering their message, far more than Sanders' message, at Westlake.

"From my generation, capitalism is a failure," said Spear. "For us, 'socialism' isn't a dirty word. Capitalism is a dirty word."

Sawant described the Democrats' leader in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, as a "corporate Democrat." She charged that the Democratic Party is "profoundly hostile" to any left-wing candidate.

"We know Hillary is no friend of workers," said Sawant. "We know Hillary is no friend of middle-class people. We know Hillary is no friend of black people and brown people."

The voters of South Carolina apparently thought otherwise. Clinton carried the African-American vote by a staggering 87-13 percent margin in the Palmetto State primary, a showing nine points better than Obama in 2008.

The Sanders movement, as shown by the crowd at Westlake, is predominantly white and strongest around university communities.

Still, Washington's March 26 caucuses are one place where Sanders can win, and where Clinton can lose. She has used the state as an ATM, with pricey private fundraisers and no public events.

Sawant warned the crowd that the Sanders campaign may hear bad news next week on "Super Tuesday."

"The corporate media will begin to write Bernie's obituary," she said.

But the movement must press on, she said, with its ultimate goal "building an independent party for the 99 percent."