There are few places in the nation where a democratic socialist independent who’s mulling a presidential run would have more rock-star status than the Bay Area. Yet U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, is convinced that his populist message can resonate far beyond places like Berkeley and Brooklyn. “If you go to almost any state in this country, including the most conservative, and you ask them if it makes sense to give tax breaks to billionaires while making cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and education, they will say ‘no,’” Sanders said in an interview Monday afternoon in San Francisco. He said...