Bernie Catches Up To Hillary In The N.H. Ground Game:
Karthik Ganapathy, Sanders’ New Hampshire communicators director, told Boston.com Monday the Vemont senator’s campaign has enlisted 53 paid staffers and 4,600 volunteers in the state since August.
“We expect both numbers to grow considerably,” Ganapathy said, noting Clinton’s volunteer numbers are since April and built upon her presidential run in 2008, while the Sanders campaign has had to mobilize supporters in a smaller amount of time.
“According to those numbers, it suggests the energy Sanders has generated is manifesting into volunteers,” said Dante Scala, associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, referring to the large crowds that campaign has attracted at rallies.
The Vermont senator has also opened eight offices in the state, compared to Clinton’s 10 offices.
For Sanders, New Hampshire—described as a “must-win” by his state director Julie Barnes—is the one state where he has shown to be most competitive with Clinton—more often than not leading the former secretary of state in polls since August.
“This campaign is taking nothing for granted,” Ganapathy said Monday. “We’re working hard every day to reach voters, and making every investment needed to spread Sen. Sanders’ message across New Hampshire in the crucial months before Primary Day.”
Bernie Starts To Name Names:
The first event of Bernie Sanders’s swing through New Hampshire this weekend was uncharacteristically small. No large, chanting crowds commonplace to his campaign. Instead the Vermont senator visited a senior center in Manchester and spoke to a thoughtful group of about 20 people before taking their questions.
But it was not just the setting that was unusual for Sanders, something had changed in his remarks too. Just minutes into his speech, he said her name.
“Let me tell you a word about Social Security. I understand Secretary Clinton was here the other day. I think she and I have a strong disagreement on this,” he began, going on to talk about his proposal for maintaining and expanding Social Security by “scrapping the cap” on taxable income. By comparison, Clinton has only said she would consider such an idea.
For months, unless specifically asked about his primary opponent, Sanders did not mention Clinton while campaigning. Her name only came up in passing during Sanders’ stump speech. “This campaign is not about Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. ... This campaign is about you,” he often said.
That all changed with a pivotal night for Sanders at Iowa Democratic Party’s famed Jefferson Jackson Dinner last week. At the event, Sanders delivered his most cutting critique of Clinton to date, albeit without naming her name. Rather, he ticked through a series of past, key political moments when the two of them differed -- from the Iraq War to the signing of the Defense of Marriage Act -- in order to argue that he was the true progressive. In the days immediately following the dinner, he told reporters it was important to show voters the differences between himself and Clinton.
Americas Deep Democratic Socialist Roots:
The shock and disbelief with which many political pundits have responded to Bernie Sanders’ description of himself as a “democratic socialist”—a supporter of democratic control of the economy—provide a clear indication of how little they know about the popularity and influence of democratic socialism over the course of American history.
How else could they miss the existence of a thriving Socialist Party, led by Eugene Debs (one of the nation’s most famous union leaders) and Norman Thomas (a distinguished Presbyterian minister), during the early decades of the twentieth century? Or the democratic socialist administrations elected to govern Milwaukee, Bridgeport, Flint, Minneapolis, Schenectady, Racine, Davenport, Butte, Pasadena, and numerous other U.S. cities? Or the democratic socialists, such as Victor Berger, Meyer London, and Ron Dellums, elected to Congress? Or the programs long championed by democratic socialists that, eventually, were put into place by Republican and Democratic administrations—from the Pure Food and Drug Act to the income tax, from minimum wage laws to maximum hour laws, from unemployment insurance to public power, from Social Security to Medicare?
Most startling of all, they have missed the many prominent Americans who, though now deceased, were democratic socialists during substantial portions of their lives. These include labor leaders like Walter Reuther (president, United Auto Workers and vice-president, AFL-CIO), David Dubinsky (president, International Ladies Garment Workers Union), Sidney Hillman (president, Amalgamated Clothing Workers), Jerry Wurf (president, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees), and William Winpisinger (president, International Association of Machinists). Even Samuel Gompers—the founder and long-time president of the American Federation of Labor who, in the latter part of his life, clashed with Debs and other socialist union leaders—was initially a socialist.
Numerous popular novelists and other writers also embraced democratic socialism, including Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, Thorstein Veblen, C. Wright Mills, Erich Fromm, Michael Harrington, Irving Howe, and Howard Zinn. Eminent scientists, too, became democratic socialists, including Charles Steinmetz and Albert Einstein.
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In fact, although very few people know it, even Martin Luther King, Jr. was a democratic socialist. “I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic,” he wrote to Coretta Scott (soon to become his wife) on July 18, 1952. This belief system continued throughout his life, and, in the late 1960s, contributed to his shift from championing racial equality to championing economic equality.
Some More News On The Erika Andiola Hire:
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has hired a high-profile Arizona immigration activist to assist his campaign with outreach to Latinos, an increasingly important voting bloc.
Erika Andiola, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico, will join the Sanders campaign as a Latino outreach strategist for the Southwest. She starts work for the campaign today. Her boyfriend, Cesar Vargas, a prominent immigration activist from New York, also recently was hired by the Sanders campaign to work on Latino outreach.
Andiola is one of the most respected and well-known immigration activists in the country. She was 11 years old when she and her family came to the United States illegally to escape domestic violence. She now has a work permit and protection from deportation, thanks to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but she still doesn't have a lawful status.
Through a Facebook post, Andiola said she trusts that Sanders will put families before politics, take executive action on immigration when possible or needed, stop the incarceration and deportation of immigrants, and work to find the “right solutions regardless of corporate pushback.”
Tom Fiegen: Bernies Big Ally In Iowa:
“The first time I heard Bernie Sanders speak was in May 2014,” said Mr. Fiegen in a phone interview with the Observer. “He came to a little county on the eastern edge of Iowa, Clinton County, to speak in a little town called Goose Lake. There’s a wedding hall there. 300 people came to hear him, more than there are people in that little Town of Goose Lake. After he spoke, the mood was electric, and people were saying to each other, ‘This man should run for president,’ and he hadn’t even hinted at presidential ambitions that night.”
Mr. Fiegen shares similar stances with Senator Bernie Sanders, including repealing Citizens United.
“I want to fix the bribery of politicians in the guise of campaign contributions,” Mr. Fiegen said. “People throw around the reference to Citizens United, but the problem is much more systemic and ingrained than that.”
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A champion of labor unions, Mr. Fiegen advocates for raising the minimum wage and creating the opportunity for workers to form a collective bargaining unit — especially those at Wal-Mart, who, according to Mr. Fiegen, is “the crack in the dam allowing working people to sink into poverty.”
Mr. Fiegen vocalized his support for Mr. Sanders after many of his own supporters implored him to do so. His campaign issued a formal endorsement this week.
His decision has been well-received, but many members of the Iowa Democratic party haven’t shared his enthusiasm for the Democratic presidential candidate. When Mr. Fiegen was introduced at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner, the 150-word introduction he was asked to provide had been edited to remove his declaration of support for Mr. Sanders.
Sanders Sits Down For An Interview:
Mind-blowing. It's how Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders describes the massive crowds of supporters and the campaign.
For the first time since launching his presidential bid, Sanders sat down with WCAX to talk with Darren Perron.
But the 74-year old Senator says it's also energizing. He says the biggest challenge and surprise in his run for president is how quickly the campaign "exploded" and the mad dash to organize in key voting states.
It might come as no surprise, but Sanders says crisscrossing the country and attending those record-breaking rallies is tiring.
Darren Perron: What has been the biggest challenge so far of this presidential campaign?
Bernie Sanders: Darren, the biggest challenge is that our campaign has exploded at a rate far greater than we thought it would. So, it is the need to put together staffing in New Hampshire and Iowa and South Carolina, in Nevada and in other states and to hire competent people and you're running a very big operation with a limited amount of time and to do all of that is pretty tough and at the same time obviously we are out all over the country on the campaign trail dealing with issues of the day. So, the combination of that I would say has been the toughest challenge.
A Bernie Rally Writeup:
Several aspects of Sanders’s speech stood out, beginning with the concluding emphasis on ending institutionalized racism – a calculated effort to reach out to the BLM movement. Bernie, and his followers, understand that attracting minority support is critically important if he is to do well in the states immediately following New Hampshire, particularly South Carolina and Nevada. Second, he said absolutely nothing about foreign policy – nor did anyone ask him about it during the question and answer period (more on that below.) Third, Sanders’ delivered his hour-long talk with passion and energy, moving smoothly from topic to topic, understanding when to pause for applause, and modulating his tone as appropriate – all in all it was a well-delivered, polished stump speech. Noticeably, although this was at least his second town hall event of the day, he showed absolutely no sign of fatigue – impressive for a 73-year old man! Finally, Sanders never once mentioned Hillary Clinton by name, although she was clearly on his mind when he acknowledged early on that he lacked endorsements from the party establishment and had no Super PAC funding. “I’d rather have the people than the politicians,” Bernie railed, to thunderous applause. He also sought to push back against the perception that his campaign was “utopian," several times noting that “it is not utopian to....” followed by a list of goals, from providing health care to all to making corporations pay their “fair share” to expanding economic security. He ended by asking his audience to join in the “political revolution," and most seemed quite willing to do so.
Bernie fielded eight questions after his talk, ranging on topics from transgender rights to how to break up banks to addressing sexual assault on campus. The most critical question came from a small-business owner who asked how small businesses were supposed to pay for an expanded family leave program. Sanders noted that it would require higher payroll taxes. A second questioner lauded Bernie for almost all his positions save one: “You are weak on gun control.” Bernie, however, pushed back, saying he was unfairly targeted on this issue, noting that he voted for expanded background checks and ending the so-called “gun show loophole.” But he also pleaded for compromise, arguing for the need to bring the 60 percent to 70 percent of people who agree “on common sense gun control” together to pursue solutions, rather than demonizing gun owners.
It is hard not to be impressed with the enthusiasm of Bernie’s supporters. They are committed to the man, and his cause, and I have no doubt they will turn out to vote for him. They could even make the difference in low-turnout caucus states like Iowa where the intensity of support can matter more than its breadth. At the same time, it is not clear to me how many new converts Bernie is winning over with his message. At one point, a show of hands indicated that nearly half those in attendance at the Lebanon event were Vermont residents! On the one hand, this is not surprising given the location of the talk less than a mile from the Vermont border. On the other, it is a reminder that even in New Hampshire, a state bordering his own and one in which demographics would seem most favorable to him, Bernie is still in a dogfight with Hillary Clinton – a point reinforced by recent polling.
Muslim Americans Appreciate Sanders:
Remaz Abdelgader, a senior at GMU, in Virginia, wanted to know more about Sanders’ stance on what she called “the growing Islamophobia in this country”.
Sanders’ comments about marijuana at the event made headlines, but the video of Abdelgader’s question struck a chord on social media. A video of the exchange on Sanders’ Facebook page has been viewed nearly 300,000 times; a video posted by AJ+ has been shared by more than 8,000 users.
“This wasn’t just a question that I had, this spoke to the reality of so many Muslims across America,” Abdelgader said. “I’m taking back my story, our story, for hundreds and thousands of Muslims in America. I’m speaking to create this change.”
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“At what point are you going to consider me American enough?” she said. “And why should I feel as an American citizen that I must always try to get another person to validate my identity? Why can’t I just be me, and be accepted, for the identity I claim?”
She said she was thrilled with Sanders’ condemnation of bigotry, saying the Vermont senator was now her “hero”.
Sanders’ remarks received approval from Muslim advocates in the US.
“I think that in putting Islamophobia in the context of racism, because he pledged to eliminate racism and bigotry, that yes, he had a good response,” said Robert McCaw, government affairs manager at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Sanders to deliver keynote address to Southern Region of National Federation of Democratic Women:
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will deliver the keynote address to the Southern Regional Meeting of the National Federation of Democratic Women on Saturday, the South Carolina Women’s Democratic Council announced.
“We are elated that he has chosen to speak to our Southern Region women,” the South Carolina Women’s Democratic Council said in a statement announcing the event.
Sanders’ keynote address comes days after more than 1,000 women across the Palmetto state endorsed his candidacy, signaling the campaign’s growing strength among South Carolina women.
“Sen. Sanders has been a dedicated advocate of women’s rights for more than thirty years,” state director Christopher Covert said Sunday. “We are thrilled to partner with an organization whose mission is to encourage political engagement among women in South Carolina.”
An October CNN/ORC poll found that 69 percent of likely women voters in South Carolina were “still trying to decide” which candidate to support in February’s Democratic primary.