The legacy of Bill Clinton took center stage as the Democratic Party's two presidential candidates made their case to African-American voters during a town hall special that aired Sunday on "BET."
In two separate interviews, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton each discussed issues related to criminal justice and poverty while touting their records of helping the black community.
Sanders told BET host and CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill that he opposed the 1996 welfare reform bill signed by former President Clinton, calling it "an attack, by and large, on low income African-Americans."
"Not only did I vote against it, but I spoke out strongly against it," Sanders told Hill.
Sanders sounded a plaintive note when discussing why the Clinton administration supported measures that many progressives consider abhorrent.
"The answer is, sadly, there are elements of the Democratic Party, historically, that have worked too closely with the big money interests that have made the agreements that were really not in the best interest of the constituents who supported them," Sanders said.
In a joint interview backstage at Sanders’s event here, Jealous and Glover talked about why they are backing the senator from Vermont and his prospects for winning over more African American voters in South Carolina and elsewhere with his message of economic fairness.
“I think the easy part of getting black voters to turn to Bernie Sanders is what happens when they actually listen to him,” said Jealous, who served as president and chief executive of the NAACP from 2008 to 2013. “The hard part is getting beyond the Clinton brand. The Clinton brand is a bit like Coca-Cola. You know, it’s a Southern brand. Everybody knows it. It tastes good. The question you have to ask is: Is it the best option for you?”
“What is certain is Clinton has hit her high-water mark in the black community,” he said. “The question is how far her support will fall [and] how fast. Right now, a lot of people in South Carolina still haven’t made up their minds.”
..
Glover, 69, may be best known for his roles in the “Lethal Weapon” movies with Mel Gibson, but he has a long history of activism on civil rights and labor issues dating to the late 1960s.
“I think that African American voters are astute and certainly intelligent enough to see the difference, and I think they’re beginning to see the difference,” Glover said when asked about the status of Sanders’s race against Clinton. “You know, most of what you’ve heard before is people saying, ‘We don’t know who Bernie Sanders is.’ Once you begin to hear what he’s about -- and that’s the responsibility of all of us as citizens -- that changes. The responsibility that I see as an artist is simply to be a truth sayer and to say what I see.”
Sunday afternoon, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders already visited the Upstate. The day after losing the Nevada Caucuses, Sanders was greeted by thousands of supporters cheering him on in Greenville.
“Don’t you feel the Bern?,” Actor Danny Glover asked the excited crowd. He went on to tell them they were part of a campaign that would bring change for our country. “It is an historic campaign,” he said.
Sanders returned the gratitude to Glover. He said, “Unlike other people who have achieved celebrity status, what Danny has done is use it in the fight for racial and economic justice in our country and I thank him.”
"We are gaining momentum," Sanders boasted during a rally in Greenville on Saturday. "This campaign is gaining momentum because we are listening to the American people and we are listening in a way that other campaigns don't."
Listening to the 74-year-old native Brooklynite, it was clear that he and his supporters viewed any talk of lost momentum as utter bupkis.
"This is a campaign that has momentum," said the independent democratic-socialist-turned-just-plain-Democrat. "If you want a candidate who is going to beat Donald Trump, you're looking at him!"
…
a loss by no means portends doom for a presidential candidate, and Sanders supporters still feel confident about his momentum despite Nevada and his South Carolina poll numbers, which have him trailing by 15 percent, according to the HuffPost Pollster average. Supporters point to the upward trends of Sanders' poll numbers in New Hampshire and Nevada and the closing gap between him and Hillary Clinton nationally.
"He's not going to win South Carolina, we know that, but it doesn't change how I believe he'll do on Super Tuesday," said Stuart Ruffner, 42, of Greenville. "He's got some momentum behind him and he's so much closer than anyone thought he would be."
Added Randall Snyder, 49, of Flag Pond, Tennessee, "He's gaining support as more and more people get to know him. This is only the third state."
Bernie Sanders came to Washington as an activist, not a legislator.
The Democratic presidential candidate has preferred rabble-rousing to the schmoozing required to get bills passed. So it's not surprising that his 25-year congressional career is defined by what he's opposed — big banks, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, tax cuts for the wealthy — rather than what he's accomplished.
But he has chalked up his share of victories as a congressman and senator. His successes in shepherding legislation into law involve less sexy stuff such as emergency funding for veterans' health care, help for dairy farmers and securing money for community health centers after giving up on his "single payer" health care plan.
A Vermont Independent who says he's a democratic socialist, Sanders often has found himself on the outside looking in. Republicans controlling the House set the agenda for 12 of his 16 years there. He did, however, display a knack for prevailing, albeit temporarily, on floor votes despite the odds.
Sanders has had a greater impact in the Senate, where Democrats were in control for eight of his nine years.
Bernie Sanders, his momentum slowed by a loss to Hillary Clinton in Nevada, faces two tests in the weeks ahead: parceling out his formidable resources to the states that offer his best targets, and boosting turnout in what has been a mediocre year for it.
To win the nomination, Sanders acknowledged Sunday that he will have to begin winning again, as he did when he trounced Clinton in New Hampshire.
“We’re studying that issue very closely, obviously, as to where we allocate our resources and allocate my time,” Sanders said.
..
Sanders has the ability to remain in the race for the distance, thanks to his fundraising abilities — and to the Democrats’ system of allocating delegates proportionally rather than in a winner-take-all fashion.
“We are in this race to the convention,” Sanders said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think we’ve got some states coming down the pike that we’re going to do very, very well in. I think, you know, if you look at national polling, our support is growing.”
He listed five Super Tuesday states in which he said he has “a good shot” March 1: Colorado, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and his home state of Vermont.
Brookland Baptist Church's congregation had a surprise visitor Sunday afternoon when Sen. Bernie Sanders popped in for an unexpected stop during Sunday supper here in West Columbia.
The Democratic presidential candidate, coming off a loss to Hillary Clinton Saturday in Nevada, worked the mostly African-American crowd, stopping to shake hands, take photos and hug a few small children who ventured up to him.
Sanders, campaigning in the Palmetto State ahead of Saturday's upcoming primary, was joined at the church by his wife, Jane, and also Ben Jealous, the former NAACP head who has endorsed Sanders
…
"This is America, we should not be having more people in jail, largely African-American and Latino, than any other country on earth. So one of the points I have tried to make, we are going to invest in education and jobs ... not more jails, not more incarceration," Sanders said.
He also talked economics, citing President Barack Obama's success in turning around the free-falling economy he inherited, though Sanders added that there is still work to be done to improve jobs. The crowd clapped more loudly at this point than any other, a clear demonstration of how popular the President is in South Carolina.
"There is going to be an important primary here in South Carolina. The country will be looking at South Carolina. I'm here to ask for your help, to help lead this country in a political revolution," Sanders said.
Infrastructure. Not a very exciting word, and certainly not one to whip up the hysteria of the electorate in an election year. We have other words for that: immigration, terrorism, religious extremism or Russian aggression. The usual suspects
…
On Jan. 27, 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the “Rebuild America Act,” which was meant to begin to tackle decades of neglect. At the time, Sanders explained the intentions of the bill: “For too many years, we’ve underfunded our nation’s physical infrastructure. We have to change that and that’s what the Rebuild America Act is all about. We must modernize our infrastructure and create millions of new jobs that will put people back to work and help the economy.”
However, Sanders’ bill did not, as he suggested at the time, only concern the long overdue task of rebuilding the necessary conditions for the life of a healthy nation. His bill, calling for a $1 trillion investment, would also create 13 million jobs in five years – good jobs — which would be exciting not only for the many unemployed and underemployed (for those living on starvation wages), but also for local, state and federal treasuries that would benefit from increased revenue, and for the many peripheral businesses, such as restaurants, retailers and other small businesses, that would benefit from the added purchasing power of working families across the nation. Such a targeted program would, in this way, provide the seeds for the multiplication of many millions of new jobs in all sectors.
..
After decades of foreign adventures and war, America, in all its aspects, subsists in a state of decay within and would be unrecognizable to the founders of our nation. Long ago, Benjamin Franklin’s maxim “A stitch in time saves nine” was left to the history books, along with its wisdom of timely action. Now, however, one stitch will no longer do – but nine, and these have been set forth in Sanders’ program, not only for infrastructure, but also measures for working families, among which include jobs, healthcare, tax justice, criminal justice reform, climate change, civil liberties and putting an end to banks that are “too big to fail.”
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is planning a campaign stop in Massachusetts.
The Vermont senator will hold a rally on Monday at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Sanders campaign officials say he plans to discuss a range of issues, including eliminating big money from politics, combating climate change and making college affordable.
The rally will be held at the Mullins Memorial Center. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. The program begins at 7 p.m.
This event is open to the public, but admission is on a first come, first served basis.
The Buzz: Clinton has a strong lead here in the polls, especially among African-American voters. How difficult has it been trying to overcome her ties here?
Jane Sanders: We started out (low) in the first poll here in South Carolina, so we've come a long way. The biggest concern is time. We are working every waking moment trying to get out and talk to people, meet with people and have them know where he stands on the issues.
We went today to Brookland Baptist Church (in West Columbia) and we met a lot of people there. We’re having a large event in Greenville this evening. We're doing radio and television interviews and we're trying to get him known.
It's an enviable place for a candidate to be, that the more you know somebody the more you trust them. I wish we had more time throughout this whole campaign.
The Buzz: The senator is in his 70s, Clinton is in her 60s, and the youngest candidate in the race (former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley) dropped out because he gained no traction. Is this an ill omen for progressives, an indication that the Democratic bench is pretty thin?
Jane Sanders: No. We have two good candidates for the Democratic process right now, and it's interesting and a little ironic, that the person who's the oldest in the race is bringing in a lot of young people into the process.
What would be very interesting, if Bernie wins the nomination, you'll see a cabinet that is very diverse in age. You will see people who were outside the system being brought it, so he will actually be ushering in another generation into the White House.
You would think that wouldn't be the case, but anybody who's seen Bernie, knows that youth is just a state of mind. He is unbelievable. No one can keep up with him.
The Bernie News Roundup is a voluntary, non-campaign associated roundup of news, media, & other information related to Bernie Sanders' run for President.
Visit the BNR group page to join or find past editions.
More information about Bernie & The Issues @ feelthebern.org
|