A Bird Joins Bernie Sanders In The Most Portland Thing Ever

A little bird flew down to join Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at his lectern on Friday, making his Portland, Oregon, rally very, very Portlandish. 

The brief encounter immediately brought to mind an actual episode of "Portlandia," the satirical sketch comedy about the quirky but very, very cool lifestyle of that Pacific Northwest city.

In the episode, Lisa and Bryce, played by Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, demonstrate how to spruce up anything and everything by putting a bird on it. In Portland, birds apparently make everything better: handbags, lamps, toast and now, presidential campaigns.

Sanders was in Portland ahead of Saturday's Democratic caucuses in Washington, Hawaii and Alaska, where he is hoping to shorten Hillary Clinton’s delegate lead. 

Winning the avian endorsement can't hurt. It was unclear if the bird would be joining him at other campaign events.

The senator was speaking to nearly 11,500 people at the Moda Center about campaign finance reform, political corruption, economic inequality and world peace when the bird appeared beside him. The audience went wild.

"I think there may be some symbolism here," he said. "I know it doesn't look like it, but that bird is really a dove asking us for world peace -- no more wars." 

Sanders' fine-feathered encounter joins a list of memorable candidate-bird meetings.

Hillary Clinton spent time with Big Bird in the 1990s, and Donald Trump had a face-to-face with a bald eagle for a 2015 Time article. But Trump’s run-in with the bird didn’t go as well (definitely no endorsement there).

The media had their own fun with "Bird Meets Bern," a rare moment of nonpartisan levity in the 2016 campaign.

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