An honorable man with principles, without an entourage of sleazebags
I begin today a three-week road trip for Bernie speaking for him in Iowa, then, Nevada for a few days in the rural areas around Reno, back to Iowa for the final week, then, the day after the Iowa caucuses headed to New Hampshire. I’m hoping to do at least one report per day but, you know, sometimes the mind gets weary and the body just wants to curl up and sleep.
I’m half way to Des Moines, holed up at the Minneapolis airport (a city boasting a minus 12 degrees right now, which makes Des Moines’ minus 6 seem balmy). So, before the first on-the-ground report, three things that are residue from the last few months that I wanted to post and never got around to.
Caleb:
Anamosa
In Mid-November, I did a swing through Iowa for Bernie (about 1,000 miles in 3 days and a bit, including two pullovers by state troopers resulting in zero tickets for the obvious speeding...karma...), including a stop in Anamosa. It’s a small town with about 5,500 people, 20 plus miles northwest of Cedar Rapids.
One of the meetings I did there was at a small cafe and, though a few adults were in attendance, it was largely a group of high school students; the campaign has made an effort to reach out to high school students because (a) they can be great volunteers and (b) the Iowa caucus rules say that if you will be of voting eligibility in the general election (i.e., in November), you can participate in the caucuses—so, there are plenty of 17 year-olds who can take part in the caucus on February 1st.
Caleb
I talked for a bit with the group and, then, invited questions. Caleb was sitting across the table from me and listening with a small smile for most of the time.
He raised his hand. What about guns? He said, and maybe you can tell from this picture of this clean-cut young man, that he comes from a very Republican, conservative family where guns are just part of their lives and they hunt deer and other animals. I said, look, Bernie has been consistent: he doesn’t want to stop people from hunting deer, he wants to stop massacres of people in theaters and schools with weapons only designed to kill people. Caleb thought about it and replied: yes but I could kill someone with my rifle. I said: sure, but let’s agree that we can never stop every single instance of violence, but you are unlikely if you went crazy and wanted to shoot someone with your hunting rifle to be able to cause the kind of carnage that an AK-47 type weapon can cause.
He nodded, with a small smile.
After the group broke up, Caleb came over and said, roughly, he had only come to the meeting because all the students got a couple of hours off school to attend (hey, I get that!) under the rubric of “political education”. But he said he’s a Bernie supporter now because he had listened to different candidates and Bernie seemed the most honest to him. I dunno—maybe he ends up getting into a fight with his parents and buckles...but who knows? These are the conversations—one of many I’ve had—that make this whole thing worthwhile.
At that same meeting, a young woman, who was a bit shyer, asked me about my pitch for the hike of the minimum wage to $15-an-hour. She said she was always told that the minimum wage was a “starter job” and that a higher minimum wage would force small businesses to close. I told her: it’s not true—most minimum wage jobs are held by non-teenagers, many of whom have families, and a lot of older people who once had good-paying industrial jobs but because of policies such as Bill Clinton and Robert Reich’s NAFTA, they had lost their jobs and had no other options. And I said: why should anyone, teenagers or other people who do a particular job, work for poverty wages? Why can’t you as a teenager pay for your own gas or movies and not have to beg from your parents?
I also added: yup, it’s true, if we have a higher minimum wage, you will probably may a few cents more for your Big Mac. To which she said, without prompting: yes but I’ll be making more money
Ah, from the mouths of the future, the ability to do simple math and logic.
Tarie:
I met Tarie just recently in a swing through South Florida (six events in 3 days organized by an awesome network of Bernie groups, and entirely without input or support from the campaign itself—a hallmark of this political revolution). She came to an event in Saint Petersburg.
Tarie
Tarie has been a life-long Republican. A mom with four adult children, she told me, “there is no way I could vote for any of” the clown-car Republicans. It’s Bernie who has turned her on: “The authenticity, no one is like that. I’ve never donated money in my life and I’m giving to him. I can’t sleep at night I’m so excited.
The Sleazebags:
The other day I debated David Brock on Erin Brunett’s CNN’s Out Front Show. You can see it here:
http://www.snappytv.com/tc/1260072
I was struck after the program by the circle of lowlifes, scam artists and sleazebags who orbit the Clinton world. You can understand when you connect some of these dots how easily this group can attack the most honorable politician I’ve had the privilege to advocate for, with lies, falsehoods and just garbage.
They care about one thing: power, money and access. And they don’t care what they have to do to get what they want. And more is coming, whatever the cost to the Democratic Party.
Brock was (for those who don’t recall) a right-wing lunatic who slandered Anita Hill, calling her, roughly, “slutty and a little bit nutty”; he also smeared and attacked the Clintons. You can argue that Brock is one of the people responsible for paving the way for Clarence Thomas to sully the Supreme Court. Now, figuring he could enrich himself by switching sides, he’s become a Democratic attack dog—paid for and financed, largely, by donors and Democratic elites who are a key part of the Clinton attack machine. I don’t get to pick who to debate and I have no problem debating, and respecting people on the other side (including Republicans—I’ve done this on CNBC etc.) but that guy is the bottom of the pond.
What about Terry McAuliffe? The bagman who basically took the corruption of politics to an art form back in the 1990s, as Bill Clinton’s finance honcho in his re-election campaign and, then, as chair of the DNC, put the entire party up for auction to the lobbyists and corporate scum who now finance the non-political revolution party machine. It’s a wonder McAuliffe didn’t get indicted for the any one of a whole series of creepy business dealings that made him wealthy but often left small investors screwed (Mother Jones has a good synopsis)
Then, there’s Robert Rubin: As Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Rubin engineered the removal of Glass-Steagall, all to cater to his friends at Citibank and the rest of Wall Street. We all know how that ended up. Rubin, though, is the more polished version of a sleazy McAuliffe/Brock: he doesn’t offend. In fact, he’s as smooth as can be. Except he, in my opinion, lied in his testimony to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission about his role at Citibank when the financial crisis hit. He’s far more typical of that layer of sleazy operator: Teflon, no jail, just keep cashing the checks.
Then, there’s Erskine Bowles, Wall Street investment banker and the co-chair, with the odious Alan Simpson, of the Catfood Commission. The sleaziness he represents is that segment of the elite that wants to cut benefits—Medicare, Social Security--to deal with a phony, non-existent deficit crisis, and demand that everyone but them take the big hit for deficits (which are not a crisis) but exist because of their incompetence and greed (handing over our tax dollars to the wealthy and corporations, for example). So, how about them apples: back in September, Bowles holds a high-dollar, elites-only fundraiser for the status quo candidate, with the candidate in attendance.
If you want to understand what the status quo candidate means when she says she wants to “get things done”, it’s deals with people represented by Bowles, Republicans et al. who want to “reform” government.
And, lordy, the list goes on. Take as a point that you want to believe that the status quo candidate is pure and believes in all these good new positions she’s never held before and now says she believes (you know, that the TPP is no longer a “gold standard” agreement). I think there are a lot of people who are well-meaning policy people who support the status quo. But how do you explain away the long list of really creepy and unethical characters who occupy influential positions in the the realm she inhabits and what power they will continue to have?
Me, I’ll cast my lot with the character and promise of Caleb and Tarie.
==================================================================================
ORDER THE ESSENTIAL BERNIE SANDERS AND HIS VISION FOR AMERICA
