I've met him a number of times.
He's the most normal guy type politician I've ever met.
He's quite genuine. If he says he's going to do XYZ, it'll either happen or you'll read about him trying and failing like he didn't have enough support from other members of congress. He gets real upset about some things in this country- it really hurts his pride, you can just sort of tell.
There's like 3 unions left in this country, but they all seem to love Bernie.
The VT National guard is very active. It would probably surprise you to read about all they do whether it be Iraq/Afghanistan or Katrina help or help during the hurricane a few years back. He takes a lot of pride in the military and is always praising them. I don't know that he had a say in whether they do this or that, but you watch his face light up when he discusses them and appreciates them and...it would have to be a good thing for our military to have a guy like him as president.
Vermont was hit harder than most states by the recession and some towns really looked like ghost-towns with businesses closed and some ridiculously high number of unemployed. The value of the dollar dropping created an almost road block to Canadians and oh so many businesses just stopped getting their regular customers. He was extremely vocal about his ideas how to save things and about American products being made and sold in America. He looked almost furious about a bunch of chinese quickly made plastic items.
He goes to funerals. He goes to hospitals. He actually visits factories and businesses in his day to day.
On FB, he seems to strongly dislike everything about the rich getting richer and tax breaks for the rich. He is oh so often discussing how the average american needs more $ more opportunity.
He lives in the public eye and doesn't shy away from it. His people put videos on youtube or fb all the time.
This negativity toward the rich is likely to cost him huge in a campaign that will be based more on money than the actual candidates.
He's got a whole lot of normal american points of views that I think people can really relate to. In a popularity contest, he'd have an excellent chance of beating Hilary. Now that he's announced his campaign I'm sure garbage will come out. It'll be that he fought for one million union workers but the one he didn't will cry loudly in public. It'll be how he voted 800k times to support the troops, but once he didn't for some odd reason. I'm somewhat afraid for him to get beaten up for the mistakes he's made or poor decisions he's made.
His temper is real. At some point, some reporter is going to ask enough careless stupid questions and he's going to show the world. I'm curious if people will think the reporter shouldn't be wasting his time or if he had a right to be angry. I'm not predicting what the issue will be, but I guarantee we see his temper and it'll be interesting how the public reacts to that. Personally, I'm fine with someone getting angry and throwing a fit at some stupid law that would cost americans jobs. I don't really care if our leader is stoic. I'm fine with it being obvious how he feels about an issue.
He's a real good guy and has done an excellent job representing his people. I'm sure Hilary will weasel her way into making backdoor promises and crooked deals to getting a giant campaign fund that'll eventually defeat him. In the meantime though, I hope Americans take the time to check out Bernie.