The Bernie Sanders predicament: Where do you fit all those people?

By John Wagner July 16 at 9:48 PM

Aides to Sen. Bernie Sanders thought they had found the perfect place for his rally in Portland, Maine: a glass-enclosed building on the waterfront that could hold up to 700 people.

Then came the RSVPs — more than 1,000 the first day, even before the campaign began promoting the event on social media.

“I was panicked and scrambling,” recalled national field director Phil Fiermonte. “It was like, ‘Oh my gosh, get me the names of every other venue in Portland.’ ”

In the end, more than 7,500 people turned out at the new site.

This is what happens when a presidential candidate is surging. In recent weeks, buzz surrounding Sanders’s audiences has been feeding upon itself, prompting more and more people to check out the self-described democratic socialist who has become Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief challenger for the Democratic nomination.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/big-arenas-plenty-of-bottled-water--the-lifeblood-of-the-sanders-campaign/2015/07/16/cbb070da-2739-11e5-b72c-2b7d516e1e0e_story.html