Ben & Jerry call for Sanders support with ice cream

Supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders' quest to become the Democratic presidential nominee gathered at the Wilmington Riverfront Tuesday to eat ice cream, call for higher taxes on wealthy individuals, and limits to the amount of money one person can give to a political candidate.

The event occurred one week before Democrats and Republicans in Delaware vote for their parties' presidential nominees. Sanders is facing Former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the winner in Delaware will snap up a majority of the state's 21 pledged delegates. On Tuesday before New York's votes were tallied, Clinton led the race for pledged delegates -- which are distributed based upon state primary election and caucus results -- 1,289 to 1,045. Sanders, however, had won the previous seven state contests.

At the Riverfront rally were Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream – also famous Vermonters. They served a peculiar kind of ice cream to the crowd of hundreds, called Bernie's Yearning, named after Sanders, who has represented the state in the U.S. Senate since 2006. A small disk of chocolate rested on top of a mass of vanilla ice cream representing the concentration of wealth among the richest people in the U.S., Cohen said.

"The way you eat it is you take your scoop and you whack it into a bunch of little pieces," Cohan said. Then "you mix it around and put all of the money back to where it's supposed to be."

Cohen said the U.S. should levy a tax on "speculative" Wall Street transactions and use the money to offer free college tuition for students across the country.

"If we were to run our country as if regular people really mattered, instead of catering to the interests of the multinational corporations and the (0.1) percent, we could have all of the benefits for regular people that other industrial democracies have around the world," he said.

The ice cream entrepreneurs' visit to Delaware came one day after they were arrested at the U.S. Capitol as part of ongoing protests in Washington about the role of money in politics.

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Jennifer Zach, a single mother from Middletown, was waiting in the ice cream line, which stretched roughly 300 feet down the Riverfront walkway. She had been a fan of Sanders during his many years in the U.S. Senate, she said. A former Wilmington bank manager, Zach called the big financial contributions that fund political campaigns "insane," and a point of frustration among many voters.

"I feel like there are a lot of closet Bernie supporters, who don't want to speak out," she said, "because they're so afraid of the word socialist."

Throughout his career in Congress, Sanders has identified as a socialist.

Following Tuesday’s event, volunteers from the Sanders' campaign will be calling Democratic voters in the First State, and knocking on their doors, said Reed Millar, Sanders’ Delaware campaign director.

Millar is confident Sanders momentum from recent successes in various state primaries will help his chances in Delaware. He acknowledged, however, Sanders faces political headwinds in many East Coast states with closed primaries, which means only registered Democrats can vote in the party's primary.  The Democratic Party’s establishment is more established in the Mid-Atlantic, he said.

“The party system has been around a lot longer here,” Millar said. “We’re hoping for as large a (voter) turnout as possible.”

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Courtney McGregor, director of Clinton's campaign in Delaware, said her supporters will likely gather for a rally next weekend but did not yet have a time or place set.

"The campaign right now is focusing on talking to everyone we can," she said.

Clinton has the experience to be an effective president from "day 1" said McGregor, and cited her efforts at lobbying Congress to pass the Children's Health Insurance Program as first lady during the 1990s, as an example.

"As first lady, you saw that she helped to get health care for 8 million children," McGregor said.

The Delaware primary is April 26. Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island also are holding primaries that day.

On Monday, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, campaigned for Hillary Clinton in Wilmington. Over the weekend, former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter also canvassed for Clinton in Delaware.

The Sanders campaign earlier this month opened an office at 900 Philadelphia Pike near Bellefonte for Delaware operations. Clinton operations are housed at 2 Mill Road in Wilmington.

On the Republican side, Gov. John Kasich's campaign in Delaware is inviting volunteers to its headquarters Saturday to phone potential voters, or to walk door-to-door in neighborhoods to speak with them. Kasich's campaign headquarters is located at 960 Justison St. in Wilmington and its doors will be open to volunteers from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. Saturday.

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.

Delaware primary

* Tuesday, April 26

* Polls open 7 a.m.-8 p.m.

* Only registered voters from participating parties may vote

* More information: http://elections.delaware.gov/

* Visit delawareonline.com for complete election coverage and join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #votede