CreditGeorge Tames/The New York Times
Asked what Bernie Sanders was “like as a kid brother,” his brother, Larry, recalled on CNN last month that he was “a very good athlete.” Responding to a question by Chris Cuomo about this comment in last month’s CNN’s Democratic Town Forum, Senator Sanders said that his elementary school in Brooklyn won the borough championship, and that he was “a very good long-distance runner” and “captain of my cross-country team.”
If these remarks made Mr. Sanders more voter-friendly, they fell into a historical tradition by which the sports lives of presidents and presidential aspirants have served to enhance their political images.