Win or Lose, Sandersism Isn't Going Away
APRIL 3, 2016 10:58 AM EST
By Albert R. Hunt

Senator Bernie Sanders is waging an improbable presidential campaign, but he won't disappear after this election. Nor will his followers: Perhaps they'll be called the Bernie Brigade or Sanderistas...

The clarity and coherence of the campaign have surprised even those who sharply disagree with him.

"Bernie has run a much better campaign than I ever thought he would," says Trent Lott, the former Senate Republican leader and Mississippi conservative.

Sanders is setting much of the Democratic agenda, forcing Clinton to move left by opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Keystone pipeline and by frequently assailing Wall Street. Even Republicans have picked up some of his populist rhetoric...

One virtual certainty: the next Treasury secretary won't come from Wall Street.

Sanders also has galvanized public outrage over Supreme Court decisions that unleashed a flood of big money into politics. Most Americans agree with him that the U.S. system of money in politics is corrupt. Both President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama paid lip service to campaign-finance reform and then put it on the back burner. Sanders's campaign ensures that another President Clinton won't have that luxury...

Sanders has attracted extraordinary support from young voters, beating Clinton by huge margins. These Americans have grown up in tough times, with more limited opportunities. They're skeptical about the establishment and the socialist label doesn't have the negative connotation it does for many older Americans...

Katy Harriger, a political scientist at Wake Forest University who has studied the youth vote, thinks that Sanders has the capacity to keep them mobilized on issues such as campaign financing and economic inequality. That engagement could carry to the off-year elections, when participation of young voters traditionally drops off.

"He has tapped into something very real and has credibility with a lot of these young voters," Harriger says.

...he now has a national megaphone that he's not likely to relinquish. He also will have more than 2 million contributors, mostly small donations, and almost to 4 million have clicked "like"on his Facebook page. In today's politics, that's a machine.