Bernie

For Bernie, the revolution has begun

Aboard Bernie Sanders' campaign plane, the senator talks of taking "a giant step" forward. 

By Gabriel Debenedetti

Bernie Sanders’ campaign plane departed from Des Moines amid uncertainty over who exactly won the Iowa caucuses, but it didn’t matter to the candidate or his staff.

According to the candidate and his feisty gaggle of aides, the revolution had begun.

“I just wanted to thank the people of Iowa for giving us this opportunity to have a kickstart as we begin the campaign to take us to states throughout the country,” said a beaming, energetic Sanders at 3:30 a.m. Eastern Time, roughly an hour and a half into the flight at the end of the long day.

Echoing a line he also delivered to a cheering crowd back in Des Moines, Sanders declared “what Iowa has begun tonight is a political revolution.”

The scene would have been hard to imagine at the outset of his insurgent campaign. Flanked by his wife Jane, chief strategist Tad Devine, campaign manager Jeff Weaver, and communications director Michael Briggs, Sanders addressed a pack of reporters climbing over seats while juggling tape recorders at the back of his Eastern Airlines-branded jet.

When the 74-year-old Sanders addressed the mass of cameras and notebooks, he showed no signs of fatigue, even managing to muster his standard disdain for the process questions that followed a contest decided by a razor-thin margin.

As they flew over the Midwest in the airliner-sized charter destined for Manchester, New Hampshire, the Vermont senator and his exhausted top aides dismissed questions about whether the campaign was in it for the long-haul and, with a dose of swagger, insisted the campaign was newly energized.

His electability – and the long-term viability of his campaign -- has long been called into question by Clinton allies, and those questions only intensified after his performance on Monday. The senator has yet to prove he can win outside of states with demographics that match Vermont’s, the argument goes, making it unlikely he’ll gain traction with the minority-heavy and politically moderate Democratic bases in the states that vote after New Hampshire.

Fed up with that argument, Sanders said “tonight is a wonderful start-off to the national campaign.”

“As I’ve said many, many times, we’re taking this to the convention, and I think tonight shows the American people that this is a campaign that can win," he said.

That near-declaration of victory was an aggressive turn for a campaign that appeared weary in the final days before the caucuses, as polling showed Sanders trailing Clinton. Sanders had worked overtime to lower expectations about his Iowa performance, dismissing the idea that a loss by a few delegates would translate into a death blow for his campaign.

Sanders spoke after Weaver -- and before Jane Sanders took a few questions -- before being pulled back to the front of the plane.

“You know! Guys! We’re in this for the long haul,” the candidate laughed after he was asked whether anything short of a resounding win in New Hampshire would be enough to keep his campaign going. “We are going to win states all over this country. Please, don’t ask me after — gee, is your victory in Minnesota, if you don’t win Minnesota — we are in this to the convention. We’re gonna win some states, we’re gonna lose some states. But I think we now have shown the American people that we have confronted one of the very difficult issues that we face."

“I think that tonight we took a giant step to overcome that kind of doubt in many voters,” added sweater-clad senator, who had shed his tie between the speech and the flight.

On the flight, Weaver accused the Clinton camp of making a disingenuous move to game the results by declaring victory earlier in the evening before the results were clear.

"From our standpoint,” Weaver said, "staff going out like that at that particular moment was an attempt to manipulate the media into calling the race for Secretary Clinton before it had been decided so that they could then come out and give a victory speech in a climate where all the media was calling the race for her."

While Sanders was still in the air, the Clinton campaign came out with a definitive statement declaring victory -- with language designed to hem in the Sanders campaign and head off their anticipated pushback.

"Hillary Clinton has won the Iowa Caucus. After thorough reporting – and analysis – of results, there is no uncertainty and Secretary Clinton has clearly won the most national and state delegates,” said Clinton’s Iowa State Director Matt Paul. “Statistically, there is no outstanding information that could change the results and no way that Senator Sanders can overcome Secretary Clinton's advantage."

Sanders demurred when asked about the Clinton statement upon his arrival in New Hampshire.

“We're going to have to look a little more closely at the election results,” he said. “Honestly, we just got off the plane.”