Sanders Is Counting On The Youth:
Sen. Bernie Sanders is betting on support from an unlikely group — people who don’t typically vote — in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
A central part of the Vermont independent’s strategy is to draw young people and others into the political process, as President Obama did ahead of the 2008 primaries. On Wednesday, Sanders will address an audience of thousands during a “student town hall” meeting that will be live-streamed at colleges and universities across the country. It’s part of his effort to boost turnout among students, beginning with the Iowa caucuses in February.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is betting on support from an unlikely group — people who don’t typically vote — in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
A central part of the Vermont independent’s strategy is to draw young people and others into the political process, as President Obama did ahead of the 2008 primaries. On Wednesday, Sanders will address an audience of thousands during a “student town hall” meeting that will be live-streamed at colleges and universities across the country. It’s part of his effort to boost turnout among students, beginning with the Iowa caucuses in February.
Bernie Clears Up Some Eligibility Requirements:
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has taken another step his campaign organization says buttresses his eligibility to be a candidate in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary.
Sanders, who is an independent, on Friday received confirmation that he is a qualified candidate in the March 1, 2016 Democratic presidential primary in his home state of Vermont.
That move, backed up by more than 1,000 signatures as required by Vermont law, should dispel any remaining question about Sanders’ qualifications to run in the Democratic primary in the Granite State, a campaign spokesman told WMUR.com.
“We received a letter from the Vermont Secretary of State on Friday stating that Sen. Sanders will be on the Vermont ballot as a Democratic candidate for president,” campaign spokesman Michael Briggs said.
“We think that this is one more piece of information that buttresses the point that he is qualified to be on the New Hampshire ballot as a Democratic candidate for president, along with about 20 other points.”
UMass Students Rally:
“This is not just about politics or [Bernie] Sanders or [Hillary] Clinton, this is about building united progressive movement toward justice and equality,” Tierney said.
Before the echo of his voice had trailed off across the concourse, the crowd responded with a chorus of cheers, supportive statements for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and a series of criticisms directed toward his opponents.
Tierney provided the introductory and closing remarks at a rally supporting Sanders’ presidential campaign, which was organized by the unofficial student group “UMass for Bernie Sanders.”
The gathering, which began at 5 p.m., featured professors and UMass students who highlighted Sanders’ policies and distinctions from his competitors that they say make him the ideal candidate for a country “wrought with inequalities.”
UMass economics professor Gerald Friedman took the microphone from Tierney as the rally’s third speaker and asked the attendees to consider the history of the University’s mascot, the Minuteman.
“Massachusetts was where democracy was born. Common farmers fought for their freedom against the greatest empire in the world and brought it down,” Friedman said. “We are not descended from fearful men and women but revolutionaries and now it is time for us to do the same.”
BernieMan:
It started almost on a whim. Cody Morrison, cherished Seattle promoter and founder of dance night High+Tight, had been talking to a friend one afternoon about the campaign of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and they started throwing around the idea of hosting a benefit. Morrison’s High+Tight collaborators were away in Europe, and Morrison had never done any kind of political fundraiser before, but he decided he’d throw one anyway. After all, they had a fantastic event name: Bernie Man, punning on the Burning Man arts festival in the Nevada desert that celebrates radical community living, annually incinerating a monolithic effigy of “The Man.” What could be more appropriate an allusion for Bernie Sanders, who has spent his 44-year career lighting a fire under the feet of big business and the poles of the broken political system propping it up?
Morrison planned to hold the event on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at Re-Bar, a theater-turned-nightclub in Seattle’s Denny Triangle that has a standing capacity of 300 at most, but—like most fires—it quickly spread.
“I posted it to Facebook and invited a couple hundred people,” says Morrison, “and within a day or two there’s, like, 1,500 people invited. Within a few weeks it was 6,000 invited.”
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“The one thing I have noticed of late is the excitement that Bernie Sanders’ campaign has created in and outside of the scene,” says Eddie Cuscavage, better known as Kadeejah Streets, co-founder of the long-standing dance collective Innerflight and one of the first DJs to sign on with Bernie Man. The longtime collaborator and friend of Morrison says “the fact that it was a fundraiser for Bernie Sanders made it impossible to say no.
Dont Worry About That Iowa Poll:
There are very good reasons to question a new Monmouth poll that shows Hillary Rodham Clinton leading by 41 percentage points in Iowa.
Most other polls have tended to show a tight race, but Monmouth shows a blowout. Why?
One possibility is that Mrs. Clinton has made gains over the last few weeks, thanks to Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race or her performance in the Benghazi hearing. But another possibility is the sampling frame of the survey. There are good reasons to believe that the Monmouth poll excludes many voters who are supporting Mr. Sanders.
What’s a sampling frame? Basically, it’s the people who could be selected to participate in the survey. According to the Monmouth poll’s methodology description, the poll’s sample was drawn “from a list of registered Democratic voters who voted in at least one of the last two state primary elections.”
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These two conditions — being a registered Democrat and recent primary participation — exclude many of Mr. Sanders’s supporters.
Tom Fiegen, Leading US Senate Candidate, Iowa, endorses Bernie Sanders:
Iowa’s leading Democratic candidate for US Senator in Iowa, Tom Fiegen, today announced his endorsement of Bernie Sanders for President. Tom is running against Republican incumbent, Chuck Grassley.
“I am supporting Bernie Sanders because he is fighting to protect working Americans from billionaire special interests, overturn Citizens United, to deliver relief to crushing student debt, expand social security and enact massive campaign finance reform. Bernie has demonstrated unconditional loyalty to working people since he was Mayor of Burlington. In Iowa I am committed to protect and expand Iowa’s grown-local farm movement; label GMO’s, and clean up Iowa’s water by stopping the excessive use of dangerous chemicals in agriculture.
Chuck Grassley is a special interest Senator whose devotion is to Wall Street, Big Pharma and the ultra-wealthy, not working Iowans. Thanks to Senator Grassley, Iowa seniors are paying more for their prescriptions and have had their Social Security benefits frozen. I stand with Bernie Sanders on the need for a grassroots revolution to take our democracy back from oligarchs.
I first heard Senator Bernie Sanders speak in Iowa at the Clinton County Democrats’ Hall of Fame Dinner in Goose Lake, Iowa on May 17, 2014. More people attended the speech than live in the town of Goose Lake. The speech was a clear, loud call to reject political bribery under Citizens United and to reject divisive politics that pits Americans against each other to enrich the top 1% of our citizens.
The 300 people at the dinner reacted to the speech like they had been hit with a lightning bolt. The energy and enthusiasm was so high that the room immediately filled with talk of "This guy from Vermont should run for President." I handed my card to the staffer with Senator Sanders and said, "If Senator Sanders ever decides to run for President, let me know, I will do everything that I can to help.
Why Moderates Support Sanders:
While the media narrative would simplify the Democratic race to describing Bernie Sanders as a challenger from the left, he has also received a tremendous amount of support from independents, and from voters in the battleground states where Clinton is weak. The Moderates for Bernie Community is one of the largest pro-Sanders groups on Facebook with over 72,000 following them at the time this is posted.
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How can a moderate support a socialist? Isn’t Bernie Sanders too extreme? Won’t this commie [insert expletive here] destroy the American way of life? We’ve gotten these questions so many times that we thought it would be easier just to write this post.
Let’s start with a radical concept: we don’t have to 100% agree with a candidate to support him. Sure, Bernie and a majority of Americans agree on many, many issues. But not all. We ourselves don’t fully agree with all of Bernie’s proposals, and we suspect that many of the people reading this don’t either. In fact – surprise! – some of the other candidates have some policies we actually like better than Bernie’s. Don’t tattle on us.
Saying we only like some of Bernie’s proposals is not exactly a resounding endorsement. So why do we support him? What got us excited enough to create this Facebook page and deal with the endless barrage of Internet trolls day after day? And why should you care, especially if you disagree with Bernie even more than we do? Fortunately, there is something that 90+% of us do agree on, the one issue above all others:
Congress sucks.
Sanders on The Today Show:
"In the last couple months, Hillary has come on board with positions I've held for many years," the Vermont senator told TODAY's Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie. "I'm glad that Hillary Clinton is moving in my direction."
Asked whether Clinton has a better chance to succeed in a general election, Sanders said "absolutely not."
"The enthusiasm that we are generating means that a lot of working class people and young people who have given up on the political process are now coming out," the lawmaker explained.
Sanders has gone out of his way to critique what he believes are the weaknesses of his direct rival's campaign, veering from his usual script at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa on Saturday night. Without specifically mentioning her name, he said he "will govern based on principle not poll numbers" and that he would oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, which Clinton once supported but now opposes.
"I did not support it yesterday,'' he said. "I do not support it today. And I will not support it tomorrow."
The Morning Joe Crew Talks About The Sexism Charge:
Clinton's recent campaign stops have included a line that mimicked the debate. Hinting that Sanders implied she should stop shouting about guns because she was a woman, Clinton went on to say, "I'm not shouting. It's just that when women talk, some people think we're shouting." After the "Morning Joe" crew played the clip, conservative co-host Joe Scarborough turned to his liberal co-host, Mika Brzezinski and asked if what Sanders said was actually sexist.
"No," Brzezinski said, asking Scarborough, "please don't make me say it." Scarborough responded, "Well, let me just say that's pathetic. That's just absolutely pathetic." Agreeing, Brzezinski said, "That was pathetic." "When (HBO show) Veep does it, Julia Louis Dreyfus, it's hysterical, because it's so ridiculous. That wasn't even funny, that was pathetic." Brzezinski continued, explaining that Clinton should know better not to cry sexism at a time when it's not called for.
Scarborough chimed in again, referring to Clinton as "sad and pathetic," stating, "That is exactly why people like Donald Trump are doing well," citing political correctness that was "just total BS." The former Republican congressman also said Clinton was acting like a "sad victim" who was playing the "sexism card."
Nancy Pelosi Talks About The Race:
At an event at George Washington University on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi praised Bernie Sanders as "fabulous" and said he may even win the nomination.
"It would be fabulous to have a woman president," Pelosi said. "You can't ask somebody to vote for somebody because of their gender."
"[Hillary Clinton] is a very qualified person who happens to be a woman, but I haven't endorsed anybody yet," Pelosi said.
“Bernie Sanders was my colleague in the House. We voted against DOMA, you know, against all of those things people are subjecting to scrutiny now. He's fabulous, and he has a very important tonic for the country and for the Democratic Party because he has ideas," Pelosi said.
"He might win the nomination," she said. "I don't know that because in terms of the demographics of how popular she is in the minority community."
From Woodstock to the White House? The Jane O'Meara Sanders Interview:
Before Jane O'Meara Sanders met her husband, Bernie, she was a self-described “Dead Head” from Brooklyn who back in 1969 slept in a tent at that year's fabled Woodstock festival.
“I mean, listening to the music was unbelievable, but what was fun was they had—it was raining all the time so everyone was jumping in the mud, it was fantastic,” Sanders said, recalling the music festival on Monday during Bloomberg's With All Due Respect.
These days, she has moved from sleeping in tents to living on the campaign trail and trying to adjust to the lack of privacy that comes with being the spouse of a leading Democratic presidential contender.
“It's amazing, we can't walk down the street,” Sanders said. “I mean, in Vermont people are so used to seeing us, it's fine and they are all supportive, but we just walked down in New York and people are turning around and stopping and asking for selfies.”
Sanders said she first heard of her future husband when she was a community organizer in Burlington, Vermont, and so frustrated at the then-mayor evading questions that she started to pepper him with her own. Others in the audience said, “Hey, you sound just like Bernie Sanders.”