Vt. Sen. Bernie Sanders an alternative to Hillary Clinton?

He did not stand before a Patton-size flag, mingle with real voters in a coffee shop, or ride to Iowa in a Scooby Van.

Dispensing with the usual staging of presidential campaigns, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders held a news conference on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol last week to launch a challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

Sanders, an independent who has called himself a socialist, railed against income inequality, higher childhood poverty, and the seeming choke hold of the wealthy on politics.

"The major issue is," he said, "how do we create an economy that works for all our people, as opposed to a small number of billionaires?"

After addressing about 100 supporters in Manchester, N.H., on Saturday, the Washington Post reported, Sanders said he would register as a Democrat if he needed to compete in the party's primary in all 50 states. New Hampshire requires candidates to fill out a form declaring party registration - questions have surfaced in the Granite State about whether he would be eligible to compete next year in the nation's first presidential primary.

"We will meet all of the requirements of all of the states, including New Hampshire," he said. "We will do what we have to do. We are going to be on the ballot in 50 states. You don't win unless you do that."

Though Clinton remains the prohibitive favorite, her ties to Wall Street, studied caution, and hawkish foreign policy views have left some liberals pining for an alternative. Sanders, with his blunt talk, nimbus of white hair, and rumpled suits, also offers a stylistic counterpoint to the scripted Clinton.

"Bernie will raise issues that won't be raised otherwise," said Michael Morrill, a longtime liberal activist in Pennsylvania.

Sanders advocates spending $1 trillion on infrastructure, a carbon tax to battle climate change, and replacing private health insurance with Medicare for all. He reserves special venom, though, for the unlimited tsunami of money in politics since the Citizens United Supreme Court decision of 2010.

"I wonder now in this day and age whether it is possible for any candidate who is not a billionaire or who is not beholden to the billionaire class to be able to run a successful campaign," Sanders said Thursday. "If that is the case, I want you all to recognize what a sad state of affairs that is for American democracy."

He added, no doubt accurately, that he was not going to get contributions from billionaires or use a super PAC.

Sanders' consideration of registering as a Democrat, the Washington Post reported, follows his campaign's statement that he raised $1.5 million in the first 24 hours of his announcing from 35,000 donors who gave an average of $43.54 apiece.

It draws a contrast with the Clintons, who have cultivated the wealthy over the years to fund their campaigns and the family's charitable foundation - while amassing a multimillion-dollar fortune of their own. A super PAC called Priorities USA Action is backing Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Sanders, however, has declined to directly attack her so far. Asked whether he was concerned about possible conflicts of interests involving contributions to the Clinton foundation, Sanders said he worried more about the billionaire Koch brothers and their vow to spend $1 billion in 2016.

Clinton already has tacked leftward since announcing her candidacy in March. After last week's Baltimore riots, she called for an end to the era of "mass incarceration" and for policies to break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness. She has often targeted income inequality.

"There's something wrong when hedge-fund managers pay lower tax rates than nurses or the truckers that I saw on I-80 as I was driving here over the last two days," Clinton told a small group of Iowa voters after her van trip.

The riff echoed a stock part of Sanders' speech for months, about the unfairness of financiers being taxed at the lower capital-gains rate on their profits.

"She strikes me as inauthentic," said Jay Lassiter, a liberal activist, blogger, and consultant based in Cherry Hill.

"She gives a lot of progressives heartburn, and that is based on substance - not because we don't like her pantsuit," Lassiter said. "I've spent my entire adult activist life trying to undo the damage of the last Clinton presidency."

He said he was referring to former President Bill Clinton's "don't ask don't tell" policy forbidding gays from serving openly in the military and the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevented married same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits and allowed states to refuse to recognize such unions preformed in other states. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 2013.

Lassiter also faulted the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he and others on the left say destroyed millions of middle-class jobs.

Hillary Clinton has recently embraced the right to same-sex marriage, though as recently as last year she was saying it was a decision best left to the states. As President Obama's secretary of state, she helped negotiate the pending Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal with Asian countries that liberal critics and labor unions fear could cost U.S. jobs; Clinton has not said whether she thinks Congress ought to approve it.

Most Democratic strategists, and even hopeful activists, say Sanders won't win. The challenge, they say, could at once pull Clinton left while making her appear more moderate to general-election voters.

"Hillary Clinton is going to be fighting the same fight, though the degree to which she does that remains to be seen," said Sam Durso, cochairman of the liberal political group Philly for Change, which grew out of Howard Dean's 2004 campaign.

Many members of his group already were enthusiastic about Clinton, he said.

"Nobody on the left should discount what an important milestone it would be to elect the first woman president," Durso said.

215-854-2718 @tomfitzgerald

www.inquirer.com/bigtent