BRATTLEBORO — You can tell when a presidential candidate has tapped into our national consciousness. The name is inescapable; Facebook feeds wash out in a tidal wave.
As a candidate, Bernie Sanders has reached this stage. Businesses, especially throughout Vermont, are highlighting the Vermont senator’s campaign through food and apparel.
Left-leaning Windham County might be a natural base of support for Sanders, even without the state pride. Voters in the county favored Obama in 2012 by a margin of 49 points, greater than anywhere else in Vermont.
Unsurprisingly, Sanders’ presence is visible throughout Brattleboro in the form of merchandise. Of course, some companies might just be riding the “Bernie boom.” But for many local entrepreneurs, their products represent fervent enthusiasm for the message of the self-described democratic socialist, who is running for the Democratic Party nomination.
Priceless guerrilla marketing
On Main Street, the Galanes store prominently displays “Bernie 2016” shirts in its window — among the first products made to promote Sanders’ presidential run.
Bo Muller-Moore, whose “Eat More Kale” shirts Galenes also sells, remembers the first day that he heard Sanders was considering a run: he lay awake that night, thinking “I gotta make a Bernie shirt.” The Montpelier artist got to work, finished the stencil that night, and posted it to his Facebook page the next day.
Response was positive enough that he got in contact with Sanders’ people, who gave their blessing to sell the shirt
“I asked, what can I do in return? And they said, ’That’s guerrilla advertising. That’s priceless,’” Muller-Moore remembered.
The Sanders campaign contacted Muller-Moore again the morning of the formal announcement, asking him to bring a rack of his shirts. They sold out immediately.
Muller-Moore is not native to the state, but the vibe suits him here.
“Coming from the oh-so-polite South, there’s a stern earnestness I get from Vermonters,” he says. “They’re not gonna blow smoke up your ass.”
His attraction to Sanders’ message is something more personal. Bo says he works seven days a week, on a “shirt-maker’s” salary. “As a parent of two children, I’m not looking for free college, but I am looking for affordable college,” he says. “Ain’t no one gettin’ rich off those shirts, I can tell you.”
Sanders is their jam
Sidehill Farm, a local jam maker, has also joined the Bernie boom. They’ve re-branded a significant portion of their mango habañero jam — a sweet, spicy spread well-suited for cream cheese bagels — as “Feel the Bern,” with a depiction on the label of Sanders’ concerned, speech-giving face.
Kelt and Kristina Naylor, who run Sidehill Farm, initially repackaged the jam for the Spirits of the Harvest festival in October, hoping to sell a few to friends. Surprised by its popularity, they decided to offer it for wider sale.
The Naylors feel solidarity with Sanders. “He’s a great standard bearer for the Vermont brand,” Kristina says. And they note that Sidehill started business in 1976, the same year Sanders got his start in politics when Burlington elected him as mayor.
“We’ve both had a consistent message for forty years,” Kristina says. “He’s not doing anything cheap or easy.”
Many of the available Sanders goods have a local tinge. Bernie Briefs was inspired by a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Larry David’s Sanders character declared he only owned one pair of underwear. Montpelier-based KSE Partners donates 10 percent of profits from Bernie Briefs to the Yellow Ribbon Fund, a charity that supports injured service members on their return home.
Montpelier-based Liberty Chocolates has a maple chipotle, “Feel the Bern” chocolate bar. Lazy Lady Farm, an artisanal cheesemaker in Westfield, offers a mixed goat-and-cow cheese simply called “Bernie.”
Other items are more niche, like the “Bern One For Bernie” hash pipe, made in Oregon and unofficially marked with the campaign’s logos.
For a consumer, embracing the imagery of an older, balding gentleman with an urgent message on economics likely takes some degree of earnestness.
The Feel the Bern jam has sold well, but “we’re not in it for the hay,” Kelt Naylor said. Both he and Kristina are open supporters of Sanders.
Bo Muller-Moore recognizes that some Bernie kitsch entrepreneurs might be motivated solely by profit. “You can Google it, I’m sure they’re knocking out Bernie shirts in Atlanta.” But from the start, his heart has been in it for Sanders over all the presidential hopefuls.
“If I was doing this for money, I’d be putting all of the other candidates on shirts,” Muller-Moore said.