tonight, one very independent yankee is being sworn in for his third term as mayor. tradition or no, fred briggs reports that some new englanders find bernard sanders astonishing. they laughed at bernie sanders when he ran for mayor, not just because he was a brash outsider from brooklyn, neither republican or democrat, but because he was an avowed socialist. still is. to us what socialism means basically is a democracy. a society where you don t have a handful of giant banks and corporations controlling the economic and political life of the nation. reporter: burlington was best known as biggest of vermont s small towns and home of the university of vermont. then came ibm with 8,000 employees, general electric, high-tech yuppies and what a political scientist calls marpies, middle aged rural professionals, people who gave up big city money to enjoy vermont s small town way of life. these voters weren t ready to elect the safe kind of mayor burlington had been accustomed
much and they want to show us how we can be just like they were back home. unfortunately they left back home because they didn t like it back home. bernie sanders 1987 in that clip defending the honor, the way of life of small town vermont. but around that time bernie sanders also started to show some political ambitions beyond just being a small town mayor. around that time he ran for governor of vermont as a third-party candidate and he lost that race with only 14% of the vote. in 1988 he ran for vermont s open congressional seat. he narrowly lost that race as well to a republican named peter smith. but when that republican, peter smith, ran for re-election two years later, bernie sanders smoked him. beat him by 16 points. and bernie sanders from that point has never looked back. he held that house seat in vermont for the next 16 years. he was re-elected to the house seven times. he then ran for the u.s. senate in vermont and you know that he won. but do you know that he won by
wishes he wore neckties but it knows he won t. some day the opposition will try to recapture city hall, but more than half the voters like it the way it is and tend to think that bernie sanders, as much as the boom, put burlington on the map. fred briggs, nbc news, burlington, vermont. i wonder if he still has that sweater? that was april, 1985. that was when the national media started to discover this eccentric, confident, curly haired socialist mayor from burlington, vermont. for a while bernie sanders was just sort of an object of national media fascination. hey, are we doing a piece about all the yuppies from the cities moving to new england? call that socialist mayor guy. rolling, rural, rustic and removed, for many vermont is a state of mind as well as a state if union, luring thousands from new york, from boston, from a nation that seems too much in a hurry. they want to live slow, they want to live quiet, they want to go to town meetings. they re trying to escape the fast
new england has a tradition of political independence going all the way back to the boston tea party. and in burlington, vermont, tonight, one very independent yankee is being sworn in for his third term as mayor. tradition or no, fred briggs reports that some new englanders find bernard sanders astonishing. they laughed at bernie sanders when he ran for mayor, not just because he was a brash outsider from brooklyn, neither republican or democrat, but because he was an avowed socialist. still is. to us what socialism means basically is a democracy. a society where you don t have a handful of giant banks and corporations controlling the economic and political life of the nation. reporter: burlington was best known as biggest of vermont s small towns and home of the university of vermont. then came ibm with 8,000 employees, general electric, high-tech yuppies and what a political scientist calls marpies, middle aged rural professionals, people who gave up big city money to enjoy ve
way it is and tend to think that bernie sanders, as much as the boom, put burlington on the map. fred briggs, nbc news, burlington, vermont. i wonder if he still has that sweater? that was april, 1985. that was when the national media started to discover this eccentric, confident, curly haired socialist mayor from burlington, vermont. for a while bernie sanders was just sort of an object of national media fascination. hey, are we doing a piece about all the yuppies from the cities moving to new england? call that socialist mayor guy. rolling, rural, rustic and removed, for many vermont is a state of mind as well as a state if union, luring thousands from new york, from boston, from a nation that seems too much in a hurry. they want to live slow, they want to live quiet, they want to go to town meetings. they re trying to escape the fast lane and live the good life. reporter: frank brian,