Here’s how universal healthcare works in the real world.

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Monday February 15, 2016 · 11:57 AM PST

2016/02/15 · 11:57

There is a diary getting a fair amount of attention due to Hillary Clinton’s latest attempt to obfuscate about Sanders’ approach to national healthcare. In reading the comments, I noticed a dearth of information and a fair amount of misunderstanding about how a system like what Sanders proposes might work.

In the interest of clearing up some confusion, here are some facts about an actual universal healthcare system out there in the real world. I used the French national health care system (la Sécu) for 28 years. I hope here to cut through the mis/disinformation about how such a system might work in the US. All the currency information is in euros. You can think “dollars”, as the buying power is about equivalent independently of exchange rate fluctuations.

1 La Sécu covers about 65% of the cost for doctor visits and medications.

2) It covers 100% of the cost of hospitalization in a public hospital. I don’t know what coverage it covers for private clinics.

3) It covers 100% for chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease etc.

4) It covers eyeglasses if you want to wear national health glasses, which are not very stylish.

5) It covers dental care rather poorly.

6) Employees pay for la Sécu through a payroll tax, like our Social Security tax. In January 2007, the year I retired, I paid .85% on my gross salary and an additional 6.65% on my salary over €3798.45. The total was €233.43 that month. The steep increase for the amount above €3798.45 amounts to a graduated tax paid by higher wage brackets. My employer paid €1599.14

7) You can buy supplemental insurance from private, heavily regulated, insurers. I paid in January 2001, when I had 3 kids and a wife on supplemental €114.34 for it. It covered new glasses every year, the kids’ braces, dental and the 35% not covered by la Sécu. In January 2007, the year I retired the supplemental for the wife and me was €62.44. The cost for the supplemental was calculated as a percentage of take home. So somebody who made less than I did would get the same coverage at a lower price. My employer paid €95.57.

8) When the kids were small, we were paid a premium of about $100 for taking them to the pediatrician.

9) One of my kids is severely handicapped and lives in a home run by the French Red Cross. La Sécu pays for his care, lodging and food. In addition he receives a small pension to cover clothes, toiletries, entertainment etc. La Sécu helped us fund an adapted minivan so that he can ride around in his wheelchair. It also covers some physical therapy that supplements the standard PT available where he lives.

10) For the indigent etc. la Sécu is free.

11) Self-employed people pay the sum of employee and employer parts based on the rates in section 6 above.

12) You pay doctor visits at a standard rate of €23 (2011). The doctor swipes your national health card, and you are automatically reimbursed to your bank account. La sécu recovers the 35% it doesn’t pay from your supplemental insurance.

13) Pharmacies are a little different. The pharmacist swipes your national health card and la Sécu takes care of reimbursing the pharmacist. You pay nothing to the pharmacist for prescription drugs.

14) There is a service called SOS Médicin that will send a doctor to make a house call. It costs a bit more than a visit to the doctor’s office, but la Sécu covers it. Pediatricians make house calls as a matter of course.

15) Most French doctor’s offices would be unrecognizable to an American. My family doctor had a waiting room with 10-12 chairs and no receptionist. He would simply stick his head out the office door and say, “Next”. If you needed lab work, he would give you a prescription to get it done at a lab. He shared a telephone answering service with other doctors to take appointments, but you could just walk in off the street without an appointment. The longest I ever waited was about half an hour. His office was a 5 minute walk from home. Some specialists have slightly more sophisticated operations, some don’t.

16) For 8% of your income, you can buy into la Sécu and live out your retirement in France. Who would want to do that, though?

The French system could be simpler. It could pay 100%, rather than giving private insurers a hand out. That would mean higher payroll taxes, but probably lower overall cost.

Is Clinton's campaign turning DK diaries into advertisements?

unclejohn

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Tuesday January 26, 2016 · 8:17 AM PST

2016/01/26 · 08:17

Over the period of this hotly contested primary campaign there have been accusations of paid commenters from both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns. Nobody has, as far as I know, provided evidence for these accusations, and some flags have been raised.

What I would like to present for examination is a diary paragraph that showed up yesterday and that seems to indicate that the Clinton campaign is providing copy for diarists. I’m not going to say that the diarist who submitted the diary is paid, but it looks like perhaps he/she is working with the campaign to disseminate advertising material on DK.

Maybe that is OK with people on this site, maybe not.

What I want to do is present the evidence and see what people think.

The diary in question is Hillary Up Close and Personal.

It is a very nice piece recounting the author’s personal experiences with the Clintons. Many Clinton supporters praised it. I read it and was surprised to find this passage at the end of the diary:

(Note: In addition to our regular content, Hillary HQ is interested in posting guest pieces from readers, particularly on weekends. So if you have an idea for a post, get in touch with us. We can also crosspost an existing piece from your own site. Thanks! -Scan)

There is a diarist called Scan, who has cross-posted at least one other diary from HillaryHQ.com .

What do people think? Is DK the place to be posting campaign-generated puff pieces? What do they add to discussions about the candidates? Are they any more substantive than McDonalds commercials? Is this any different from linking to campaigns’ TV ads?

As a footnote, I got flagged for this remark in that diary:

Nice bit of propaganda from HQ.

Some things we learned from yesterday’s data kerfuffle

unclejohn

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Saturday December 19, 2015 · 11:37 AM PST

2015/12/19 · 11:37

Early Friday afternoon, after the DNC had blocked Sanders campaign access to its data, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook called the incident "totally unacceptable", "This was a very egregious breach and our data was stolen.”

This was a clear signal that the Clinton campaign was going to go to war over the issue.

At about the same time, petitions from the Sanders campaign, MoveOn and Robert Reich, to name a few began gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures in record time. The Sanders campaign also announced that it was going to court asking for $600,000 a day in damages for loss of access to its fund-raising tool.

NGP-VAN CEO, Stu Trevelyan, explained on his blog that the type of breach that Mook claimed, could not occur, despite a non-functioning firewall.

Then, in an about face, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, attempted to things calm down by assuring listeners that the two campaigns should be able to sort matters out.

The Sanders campaign had plans to go to court at 11 PM to present its case against the DNC, but never got to court. In complete capitulation, the DNC promised late last night to drop its blockade on Sanders’ data.

What do we learn from all this:

1) The Clinton campaign went off half-cocked, without looking a few moves ahead to see how the adversary would respond to their attack.

2) Sanders created an immediate pincers movement to repel the attack. On the one hand, the mass of supporters was mobilized to arouse public opposition to the DNC’s action against the campaign. On the other, the campaign launched what would have been a devastating legal attack on the DNC, which was prima facie in breach of their contract, which stipulates 10 days’ notice for any change in the conditions of access to data.

3) Sanders clearly demonstrated that

a. He could beat Clinton at this game in real time. He played 11-dimensional chess while she was still looking for the board.

b. He has said that he would arouse the people to force a recalcitrant Congress to pass his legislative initiatives. Yesterday’s skirmish demonstrated his ability to do that even before his inauguration.

4) Clinton demonstrated that

a. Her campaign is in trouble. She is feeling the pressure of recent Sanders fund raising and endorsement victories, and knows that her chance to win is slipping away.

b. She is no more capable of foreseeing the outcome of her actions than when she voted for Bush’s Iraq war.

c. She cannot mobilize her supporters to rally to her in a fight. Did anybody see any pro-DNC/Clinton petitions?

Executive Summary:

Friday’s skirmish showed that Clinton is not a leader, but Sanders is. Clinton cannot think strategically, but Sanders can. Clinton’s supporters are passive and may or may not bother to vote for her. Sanders has a good start on building a mass movement to back up his presidency.

Has Clinton turned her back on Wall Street?

unclejohn

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Wednesday October 28, 2015 · 9:37 AM PDT

2015/10/28 · 09:37

Sen. Sanders and Sec. Clinton have turned their backs on the prison industry.

In September Senator Bernie Sanders introduced “a bill that would ban government contracts with private prisons.”

Under “pressure from civil rights and immigrant justice groups, who launched online petitions and interrupted Clinton’s public events, demanding she cut ties with the private prison industry,” she has done the right thing. Her campaign “will no longer accept donations from federally registered lobbyists or PACs for private prison companies.” Going one better she has also decided to “donate the large amount she has already received from these sources to a yet-to-be-named charity."

Both of our candidates have acted admirably on this important issue.

Poll

42 votes Show Results

Should she keep their money or give it back?

42 votes Vote Now!

Should she keep their money or give it back?

Keep it

15 votes

Return it

26 votes

Other - please comment

1 vote

How to tell the difference between a progressive and a liberal

unclejohn

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Tuesday September 08, 2015 · 4:00 PM PDT

2015/09/08 · 16:00

This article is reprinted in its entirety from the original 2010 article by Sam Smith of the Progressive Review.

Progressives, as liberals did before Reagan, emphasize doing the most for the most – which is how we got socio-economic programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and a minimum wage. Today’s liberals favor expanding health insurance company profits over expanding Medicare and strongly support Democratic presidents who undermine the very programs that earlier liberals created such as social welfare and Social Security.
Progressives don't act like prudes, puritans and prigs.

Progressives don’t think the commerce clause of the Constitution should be used just because you feel like doing something, such as avoiding single payer health insurance. There is a huge difference between using the commerce clause to guarantee human rights and using it to subsidize health insurance companies.

Progressives recognize the Green Party and its members as part of a broad coalition. Most liberals act as though Greens were a new kind of HIV.

Progressives try to convince people with whom they disagree, not just scold them.

Progressive oppose the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq; liberals like them as long as a Democratic president is running them.

Progressives oppose the war on drugs, America’s most masochistic and deadly battle since Vietnam. Liberals treat it with utter indifference.

Progressives believe what people do is more important than how politely they talk about it.

Progressives don't think you should have to go to grad school to have an important role in government.

Progressives respect state and local government; liberals often act like they're a Republican plot. Progressives understand the importance of the devolution of power to the lowest practical level.

Progressives worry about locked doors, liberals about glass ceilings, which is why liberals thought Obama's election would create a post-racial society.Too many liberals are infatuated with symbolism such as electing a black president, while ignoring the real problems most minorities face in everything from the job market to dealing with the law.

Even progressives who don't own guns respect the right of others who do. Besides, why piss them off the way liberals have done, when they could be allies on a host of other issues, beginning with civil liberties?

But then, progressives still defend civil liberties. Liberals seem to have forgotten about them and ignore Obama's abuse of them.

Progressives pursue issues; liberals support candidates.

Progressives don't give up an issue just because the candidate they voted for is now in office and opposes it.

Liberals love Clinton and Obama while despising the Bushes who preceded them. They don’t seem to notice that our government continued to move to the right under both Democrats and that neither repealed any significant policies of their GOP predecessors

Progressives don't think bailing out banks is an economic stimulus, but that helping to create jobs and stop foreclosures is.

Progressives support local public schools and their teachers; liberals go along with the Bush-Obama attack on public education.

Progressives are not afraid of criticizing Israel for its abusive treatment of Palestine. Liberals either support Israel's criminal actions or are afraid of being called anti-Semites so don't say anything.

Progressives have new ideas; liberals come up with new compromises with the right.

Liberals have become an elite demographic while progressives are a populist movement.

Progressives believe that change is produced by broad coalitions brought together on specific issues, but not necessarily agreeing on all policy. Liberals believe change will come when everyone acts like they do.

Poll

75 votes Show Results

Are you

75 votes Vote Now!

Are you

Progressive

50 votes

Liberal

19 votes

Not

6 votes

Letter to people who were at Scuppernong Books last night

unclejohn

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Thursday July 30, 2015 · 7:50 PM PDT

2015/07/30 · 19:50

I wrote earlier about the meetup I hosted at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, NC.

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Here is the letter that I have sent to them. The point is to suggest where we go from here. I hope others will be able to capitalize on some of my suggestions.

unclejohn

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Tuesday July 28, 2015 · 7:13 PM PDT

2015/07/28 · 19:13

It’s now official, according to CNN’s most recent poll Bernie Sanders beats any Republican candidate for president. Today his margins are thinner than Clinton’s, but only about half the electorate have heard of him. His margins can only widen as his message spreads. Clinton’s margins are probably static from here on out. Everybody knows who she is and what she stands for. There will be few if any epiphanies about her.

For months we have heard argument after argument for why we must nominate Hillary Clinton and for why Bernie Sanders is a side show that will fade away with the autumn leaves. We hear: Clinton is inevitable. The Democratic Party has to win. A Democratic president must select the next Supreme Court justices. A Republican win will have unthinkable consequences.

Clinton is not inevitable. All the polling trends show that she is losing ground to Sanders in the early primary states. There are six months to go before the first primaries, and her chances for inevitability are seeping away, just like they did in 2007-8. Then, the unelectable Barack Obama did her in. Now, the unelectable Bernie Sanders is doing her in.

Not to worry, though. The Democrats will still win the general election. A Democratic president will still select the next Supreme Court justices. The unthinkable has been averted.

The question is: which Democrat will become our next president Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders?

Since we no longer have to worry about losing the election to the Republicans, let’s decide what kind of president we want. Let’s compare their policies and see which of them represents us the best. The remainder of this diary will be a comparison of policy stances. That’s what is left for us to debate in the months leading up to the primaries.

Poll

133 votes Show Results

Would you rather have a candidate who works for the working and middle classes or for the billionaires?

133 votes Vote Now!

Would you rather have a candidate who works for the working and middle classes or for the billionaires?

Working and middle classes

126 votes

Billionaires

7 votes

Street organizing for Sanders

unclejohn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday July 04, 2015 · 2:23 PM PDT

2015/07/04 · 14:23

Here in Greensboro, NC, we don’t expect to see the Sanders campaign any time soon, since our primary is not until at least March.

But, that doesn’t stop us from organizing. Triad for Bernie 2016 is a new group of Sanders supporters that started grassroots organizing with a meetup on June 23. About 20 people showed up and many were ready to get involved. We are in the Piedmont Triad of NC, which includes Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point. Our strategy is to activate a network of people in the area who can fold into the national campaign when it arrives.

Last night, we hit the streets on Bernie’s behalf for the first time. I’d like to tell you about it, hoping that other groups can profit from our experiences. We want you to share your experiences with us, too.

First Friday of every month, Elm St., Greensboro’s main street, becomes pedestrian in the evening. Many shops stay open later, there are street musicians, food trucks, strolling and a good time is had by all.

Triad for Bernie, with eight organizers, wearing Sanders tee-shirts, went down to Elm St. to stir up some support for Bernie. We had a card table with signs on it and a couple of chairs. Our friends at Wilmington North Carolina for Bernie printed masses of buttons and bumper stickers, some of which they sold us at a reasonable price. We had them on the table marked “$1 or more.” Many people gave more, so we will be able to buy or print more as needed. Sometimes we gave them away to enthusiasts who couldn’t pay. We also had flyers with Bernie’s Agenda for America. These are important, especially for people who don’t know what he stands for or who he is.

Those of us at the card table signed up people who wanted to be in touch, noting on the signup sheet whether they were ready to get active. That’s important. The rest of the team spread out with clipboards and voter registration cards. They pigeon-holed people and talked about the campaign while they filled out the cards. Then the canvassers would point them to the table for follow up.

Important stuff to know about voter registration. If your process is like NC’s, make sure the cards are signed and there is a phone number, so the board of elections can call for clarification. Be sure to ask registered voters if they have moved since they registered. They may have to update their registration. In NC, a 17-year-old can vote in the primaries if he/she will be 18 in time for the general election. Talk with a registration expert at the League of Women voters.

Of course, most of the people who passed the table had other things on their mind and didn’t want to stop. That’s entirely normal. It’s hard to tell how many people already knew about the Sanders campaign, but some who didn’t stopped to find out. We signed up a racially and gender mixed group of people. More than half of them said that they were ready to organize or might want to. The others either didn’t respond to the question on the signup sheet or said no.

One remarkable recruitment involved two African-American women who didn’t know about the campaign. One of them started reading the Agenda for America, and saying after each point, “I agree with that.” While she was signing up, I talked with her friend, who ultimately, said, “Yeah, but what can you do about it?” I replied, “Get active.” She said, “Oh.” And signed up, too.

Of course, we ran into people who were reticent about Sanders. Here are some of the reasons:

They had never heard of Bernie Sanders. That group is, I think, dwindling rapidly.
They are against gay marriage and don't like that he supports it. What can you say?
They like Sanders but Clinton is a) a woman or b) going to win. She'll always be a woman.
They don't like Sanders' support for Israel. No candidate in either party is going to be against Israel. If this is a big issue for you you're going to have to pick the lesser evil.

Then there was the elderly owner of the building where we had set up shop. Let’s just say, she was not happy to see us. “Sanders! He’s a socialist! GET OFF MY PROPERTY!” So, we did. That was the only belligerent person we encountered.

Click on over to Triad for Bernie 2016 and give us a bit of love. There’s a photo of most of the organizers on private property. I’m in the middle hugging my fiancée.

We’ll be in Winston-Salem with our banner on July 13 for the Moral Monday Voter Rights March.

Then we have a meetup in Graham, NC on July 21.

We are planning a meeting for July 29 at the same time as Sanders groups across the country.

Somewhere in there we have a farmers’ market to table and preparations for students returning in mid-August.

MoveOn should back Bernie

unclejohn

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Wednesday May 06, 2015 · 1:48 PM PDT

2015/05/06 · 13:48

On May 1 I started a petition urging MoveOn to back Bernie Sanders.

MoveOn should back Bernie

Some of you have signed it, many haven't. However, to date 811 people have signed it. That's more than I ever expected since my resources are meager.

I have stayed up nights wracking my brain about how to promote this petition. I have sent emails to friends and family and influential people who I thought might sign it and promote it. You may have seen my comments in diaries about Bernie Sanders where I have plugged the petition.

Maybe you have seen it on Facebook, where I have promoted it in the comments on relevant articles. I have done this on Bernie’s own pages and a number of others. Some good soul promoted it on Thom Hartman’s forums. It may even be somewhere on Twitter and Reddit. I mention these different ways to promote the petition to help stimulate you to come up with your own good ideas. Bernie can use your creativity right now.

Maybe, like me, you have volunteered for his campaign. Well, so have about 175,000 others, so it might be a while before the campaign contacts you and asks you to do something. Bernie can use your help right now, and this is a good way to jump into his campaign.

Some of you who haven't signed the petition might wonder why I bother. Well, I first heard about Bernie Sanders while he was mayor of Burlington, VT. He seemed to be a very unusual politician. First, he called himself a socialist in a conservative rural state. More importantly, he has consistently stood up for the interests of working and middle class people throughout his 35 years in politics.

When he ran for Congress and the Senate, I began donating to his campaigns, although I couldn't vote for him. I have made a first contribution to his presidential campaign and have signed up as a volunteer.

To get an idea of what he has to say, you might want to read this "executive summary" article:

Why everyone including middle class Republicans needs to listen to Bernie Sanders

If you are still interested, you might want to read his

Agenda for America - 12 Steps Forward

I think that most of you are probably in agreement with most of what he proposes, but are convinced that he could never get elected, so why bother? You might be right, except for one very important factor.

Many Americans have reached a stage where they are "as mad as hell and not going to take it anymore." That's what the Tea Party is mostly about. That's what Occupy is about. Many voters, and non-voters too, are rapidly moving to the "left." That's why you keep hearing about "progressive" politicians. That's why so many middle-of-the-road Democratic politicians are suddenly proclaiming how "progressive" they are. You have probably noticed that Hillary Clinton, whose entire political career has been smack in the middle of the road, is running as fast as she can to the left, trying to keep up with the electorate. There is something of a traffic jam on the Road to Damascus.

Many people are looking for Sanders' pragmatic, progressive solutions to their problems. I think that there is a small but significant chance that Bernie Sanders can win the presidency. He can attract many regular voters from both parties, including working class white men, whom the Democratic Party abandoned long ago.

It may not seem obvious, but many Tea Party members are really progressives who haven't yet realized it. They see what's wrong, but they have been led off in the wrong direction. Many, when they hear Sanders and see his program, will want to vote for him.

Nearly half the eligible voters don't even bother to vote because neither party addresses their concerns. When they hear from Sanders, though, they could very well decide that voting is worthwhile. Together, these groups may be large enough to put Sanders in office. I think the chances of this are good enough to make an effort to get him elected

Also, Sanders has consistently confounded the pundits who claimed that he couldn't get elected because he ran as an independent, because he's a socialist or too radical. The pundits have been wrong twenty times.

That's why I'm asking you to sign the petition and to pass it along to others. If MoveOn puts its talent and energy at Bernie Sanders' disposal, instead of continuing the futile effort to draft Elizabeth Warren, we could increase dramatically Sanders' chance of winning. The earlier MoveOn moves on, the greater will be their impact.

On Sunday, at the point that I had about 200 petition signers, MoveOn contacted me and said, "We're thinking about highlighting your petition on our website or maybe even emailing it to some of our other members." I think that means that perhaps they are beginning to realize that the Warren effort has run its course and that they may be ready to switch to Sanders. If that is so, your help on this petition drive could be critical.

To clarify how MoveOn operates and why this petition might be critical to changing their policy, consider this: MoveOn decided to start the draft Warren campaign after polling the membership on what they wanted to do about 2016. Warren polled highest among potential candidates to support, while Sanders polled second. Now that Sanders is in and Warren isn’t going to get in, MoveOn should be looking for another project. If enough people petition them to support Sanders, they might just run another poll among the members. My bet is that Sanders would come out on top.

Move on has tremendous resources, talent and energy. That is clear from the way they have managed the Warren campaign. They also have 8 million members to mobilize.

So, give it a shot.

Here's the link again:

MoveOn should back Bernie

Please use it and pass it along to others. This could just be the turning point in American life that I think we all agree must come. Let's do our best to make sure it does.

Thanks and best wishes to all of you.

Unclejohn

PS: There are now 827 signers, up from 811 when I started writing this diary. Hurry and sign while there are still place. ;-)

The DailyKos Airbrush?

unclejohn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday April 28, 2015 · 5:26 PM PDT

2015/04/28 · 17:26

Today I got a letter from DailyKos asking me to sign a petition asking the President to release the TPP draft treaty so that we can all judge it on its merits.

Specifically, the letter said:

Join CREDO and Daily Kos in becoming a citizen co-signer of the letter from Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown to President Obama: Release the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership draft before Congress votes on Fast Track.

Earlier in the day I got a letter from Bob Fertik at Democrats.com saying:

Senator Warren and Senator Sherrod Brown joined Senator Bernie Sanders in demanding publication of the full TPP text, so everyone can see it and draw their own conclusions.

Same petition, but somebody got left out in the DailyKos version - Bernie Sanders, who, incidentally, originated the petition long before Obama took a swipe at Sen. Warren.

Now, you might ask, didn’t DailyKos know that Sanders had originated this petition? Did DK perhaps find it awkward to mention a possible primary candidate who could actually give Secretary Clinton a run for her money?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Might I humbly suggest that DailyKos should, in all honesty and fair dealing, send correction to everybody who got this email, apologizing for its lapse and ascribing the petition to Sen. Sanders?

Fast Food Workers’ Strike - tell your story

unclejohn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 04, 2014 · 7:20 AM PDT

2014/09/04 · 07:20

Let us know what is happening in your community.

My SO and I have just returned from the picket line at Wendy’s in Greensboro, NC. There were 30-50 enthusiastic strikers and supportive members of the community. The chanting was to the accompaniment of the Cackalack Thunder Drum Corps, who are often to be heard at rallies and pickets in the area. Initially, it seemed that passing drivers were less demonstrative in their agreement with the demand for $15/hr, but starting about 9:30, the honking, thumbs up and raised fists became more frequent. Wendy’s is on the affluent west side of Greensboro, near the corner of W. Market St and Muir’s Chapel Road. Other pickets that I have been on in East Greensboro, which is working class and African-American, have generally, and not surprisingly, drawn a greater outpouring of support from passers-by.

Let’s try to keep this diary on the front page so everyone can chime in.

Bernie Sanders election rally in Raleigh, NC

unclejohn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday August 28, 2014 · 11:39 AM PDT

2014/08/28 · 11:39

Last night Bernie Sanders spoke to a capacity crowd at the Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC. The event was clearly organized to promote Bernie as a Democratic candidate for president. People were handing out stickers urging him to run as a Democrat. The Wake County (Raleigh) Democratic Party chairman was on the podium with Bernie and spoke highly of him. Others on the podium included an AFL-CIO official and a student political leader from NC State University.

The atmosphere was enthusiastic about Bernie and his democratic socialist program. He arrived to a standing ovation and when he outlined his answer to the current economic crisis – renovate infrastructure, raise the minimum wage, single payer health insurance, reduced military spending … - the crowd applauded heartily.

One questioner from the audience asked Bernie how he should respond to friends who don’t like the fact that Bernie is a Socialist. Bernie replied, “I’m glad you asked that question. I am a socialist, a democratic socialist.” There was scattered applause. He then went on to describe the social safety net in the Scandinavian social democracies – universal health care, free education k-PhD, paid parental leaves, unemployment insurance and retraining. He said that you should tell your friends that this is what it means to be a democratic socialist. This time, the applause was overwhelming.

I have read comments on this site that claim Bernie has no base in the Democratic Party or that he can’t run in the Democratic primaries because he is not party member. Well, that doesn’t seem to have stopped North Carolina democrats from greeting him and his program with open arms.

As more people hear what Bernie stands for they will flock to his banner. People who don’t usually bother to vote because neither of the parties has anything to offer them will vote in droves. People who think they will be a shoo-in for the nomination will have another think coming.

To quote the sticker that people were wearing last night

RUN BERNIE RUN as a Democrat for president

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