Sanders’ First NH Employee Believed All Along
CONCORD,NH — Back in May — before the thousands of New Hampshire volunteers, the “Summer of Bernie,” the craze of Donald Trump, and the February snowstorms — there was only one Bernie Sanders’ employee in New Hampshire: Kurt Ehrenberg.
I asked him if he was surprised by how the campaign had grown since May.
Ehrenberg, soft spoken and in his late 50s, gave a sheepish smile. “I believed all along,” he said.
Sanders is an angry and passionate speaker — an orator who seems no different in front of a large crowd than in an intimate setting. The same is not true for the shy Ehrenberg, who did not appear on stage in any of the events I attended.
Ehrenberg has come a long way from his early days in progressive Newton, Mass., where he developed an intense passion for leftist politics. As a teenager he campaigned for the 1976 presidential bid for Arizona Congressmen Morris Udall.
Ehrenberg shares the same passion for progressive politics as Sanders, though the two express it in different ways: Sanders likes to yell about income inequality and Wall Street fraud, and Ehrenberg prefers things behind the scenes, organizing events and volunteers. He is the New Hampshire Field Director, meaning he is in charge of all volunteers and campaigning in the state. He is top dog.
But before May, before Ehrenberg was a Sanders’ aide, he was part of a group that tried to petition Senator Elizabeth Warren to run in 2016. A three-member staff, Ehrenberg included, rented an office in downtown Manchester, and coaxed potential voters to sign a petition encouraging Warren to run. The petition was somewhat of a trial balloon for Warren. It must not have been so successful, because come May, Ehrenberg was working for a different progressive: Bernie Sanders.
Sanders has provided an unexpected challenge for Hillary Clinton. But Ehrenberg, with blue eyes gleaming at the Senator’s stump speech, is not surprised. He believed all along.
