Sanders supporters aglow in light brigade

Bernie Sanders’ supporters will be glowing tonight, and not because of their candidate’s surging Iowa poll numbers.

People in 40 cities, organized by Sanders’ grass-roots supporters on the online message board Reddit, have signed up to host a second round of “Bernie Light Brigade” events tonight across the nation.

They will adorn overpasses, public parks and beside busy streets with eye-catching, homemade “Bernie 2016” LED signs, according to Aidan King, 24, of Montpelier, Vt., who launched the "Sanders For President" subreddit.

The idea is the brainchild of Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, who were inspired by work done by the activist group Overpass Light Brigade, King said. Before the inaugural Dec. 18 event, Greenfield built a “Bernie” LED sign and stood on an overpass outside Burlington, Vt., to encourage others to do the same.

“If Ben (my esteemed photographer) and I can do it, then so can you, and it's a lot of fun, too,” Greenfield wrote last month in a Reddit post, including a photo of his sign.

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King said feedback from the first event was positive, and some of the volunteers turned their light brigades into voter registration events when passers-by expressed interest.

“The volunteers in each city or town, they get honked at — the good kind of honking — they get cheers, they get thumbs-up,” King said. “It’s really this double whammy of raising awareness and having a memorable impact on people, but also getting people registered to vote, or getting people to donate or getting people to sign up for a phone banking event.”

The events are being held where there are large communities of Reddit users. Only one is planned in Iowa.

The “Sanders For President” subreddit, which has more than 150,000 members, has been particularly active in promoting Sanders’ candidacy at the grass-roots level. Members have raised more than $800,000 for the campaign, King said.

Sanders has interacted with the Reddit community for years, doing periodic posts and fielding questions during "Ask Me Anything" sessions. Reddit's generally young users have supported Sanders' calls for free college tuition, universal health care and campaign finance reform, according to King.