Grab your swimming suits, because the Bernie Sanders tsunami is hitting the shores of America! It is inevitable now that the massive tidal wave of support and enthusiasm for the Vermont Senator is going far and away above expectations from when he entered the race on May 26, 2015. Now, as the first primary state gets ready to open it’s polls, Bernie is poised for a huge upset win over the anointed one, Hillary Clinton.
Over the last several months, Hillary has enjoyed an enormous lead in almost every political poll known to man. Well, except for those pesky, unscientific social media online polls. Bernie wins those often times by 80+%, every time. After each of the three Democratic debates and the one Democratic town hall, Bernie has won every online poll, despite the pundits and main stream media stating otherwise. The pundits and the MSM froth at the mouth and fall all over themselves trying to declare Hillary the winner of each of these debates. Are they right?
How is Bernie drawing such massive crowds while at the same time the Hillary Clinton rallies have low voter turnout and is usually dominated by reporters and political pundits. Let’s face it; Hillary is speaking to half empty, small to medium size conference rooms most of the time. The cameras never pan the crowd to gauge the reaction of the attendees to her policy proposals. Why? Because most of the people there are holding a news camera, a notebook, a clipboard or an audio recorder. Well, except when she speaks to Goldman Sachs or AIG for $250K per hour. Then the rooms are packed!
Let’s examine how these two campaigns really work in order to get a broader perspective of the differences between these two candidates.
Hillary is a multi-millionaire former Secretary Of State. She is also a former two term Senator from New York as well as the former First Lady. She ran for the democratic nomination against Barack Obama in 2008 and lost miserably. Now, Hillary has been the favorite to win the democratic nomination for the last couple of years. In that time, her and her husband Bill did their very best to raise an obscene amount of money for their net worth and her impending Presidential campaign. The issue that her critics have with all of this fundraising is the question of where and how all of that money was raised. Most recently it has come to light that Hillary and Bill have raised over $100 million in speaking fees since 2001, primarily from Wall Street, the Insurance industry, the Healthcare industry and the Pharmaceutical industry. People question how much effort a politician will put forth in regulating industries that pay them to stay in power.
Bernie Sanders is a 30+ year veteran of politics. He truly has worked his way up from the bottom. Starting as the Mayor of Burlington, Vermont to the House and then the United States Senate. Now he finds himself embroiled in a very tough uphill battle to win the Democratic nomination. Bernie has been steadfast in his pursuit of ethical politics. He is truly scandal free. A closer look at where Bernie’s income is derived shows that his reported income is mostly from his senate job which is $174,000 per year. Not much else. No speaking fees or exorbitant consulting fees to Wall Street banks or investment firms.
The picture is clear. But what the voters need to consider is this indisputable fact; politicians are indebted to their constituents. But to know that is also to know that today’s politics are not like your father’s politics. It is a whole different animal now. Constituents are not just the voters that a politician represents now. “Constituents” is a prehistoric word, and in today’s politics it means donors. Politicians are indebted to their donors.
Between these two candidates, one of them (Hillary) is receiving money from special interest groups, Wall Street, Investment banks and industries that spend enormous amounts of money to lobby congress to suit their corporate interests and their bottom line profits. The other candidate (Bernie) is receiving money from working class organizations (unions), universities and private, individual donors. So since donors are a politician’s constituents, it becomes clear to see who these two candidates will be indebted to. The question becomes, does the country need a president that is being paid by big money to stay in power, which she will no doubt put first on her priority list? Or, do we want a person that has been propped up by the people and has dedicated himself to governing on our behalf? I think the answer is clear.
“But Hillary is getting all of those important endorsements and Bernie is getting very few”, you say. Is that because his colleagues in congress don’t like him? Or is it because none of them want to change the status quo? Are they content with being in congress and living above the law, getting huge campaign contributions from lobbyists an getting wealthy in the process? Are they scared to support Bernie because he wants to change that and make being an elected official a civic duty again? A duty that is of the people, by the people and for the people?
When Hillary was the First Lady, she fought feverishly for everyone to have healthcare. She championed the idea of a universal healthcare system in the United States where everyone was covered. Now, twenty some years later, her political opponent Bernie Sanders, has made single payer healthcare a cornerstone of his campaign. For some reason, she is traveling the country saying that idea is a fantasy that will never happen. She is dead set against having a healthcare system that covers everyone. Could that be because she truly believes that, or could it be because she is being paid over $13 million by the health industry?
Over the course of this country’s history, there have been many ideas that have been deemed impossible.
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- Social Security
- Nasa
- The Affordable Care Act
The question is, are we a country of doers, or do we throw our hands up in defeat and fall back on an excuse of “it will never happen”? Are we a voting populace that is looking to elect the status quo, or do we, in our hearts, know that this current political system needs a complete overhaul? If you are like me, then you want the latter. And you know that there is only one candidate that can deliver the political revolution that we so desperately need. That candidate is Bernie Sanders.