Bernie Sanders’ latest California rally was thrown together in less than 24 hours, after bad weather forced him to cancel a planned campaign trip to Wyoming. But the event at the Wiltern theatre in Los Angeles was nonetheless a sell-out, with an overflow line stretching all the way down the block outside.
The Wiltern is more accustomed to hosting bands than presidential candidates, but the Vermont Senator received a rock star’s welcome. “We can argue about whether Vermont is more progressive than California,” he said as the cheers died down. “But I feel very comfortable here tonight.” Which is lucky, he might as well have added, since he’ll soon be spending a lot of time in the Golden State.
As the overwhelming winner of this week’s caucuses in Utah and Idaho, Mr Sanders nibbled ever so slightly into Hillary Clinton’s substantial delegate lead in the Democratic race, despite her victory in Arizona. But he has spent the past two days even further west, with rallies in San Diego and LA, where he also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show and YouTube political show The Young Turks.
The Sanders campaign plans to open offices across the state in the coming fortnight, and Mr Sanders is reportedly counting on his allies from California’s labour unions and environmental organisations to keep bringing large crowds to his rallies here. "The road to the White House goes right through the West," he told the crowd at the Wiltern, "and right through California".
Ms Clinton has also been in California this week, for a series of fundraisers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. But as if to highlight the differences between the two campaigns, entry to Mr Sanders’s LA rally was free, while the cheapest tickets to Ms Clinton’s celebrity-studded event at the Avalon nightclub in Hollywood on Thursday cost $500
With a new poll showing him in a competitive race in California, Bernie Sanders kicked off his campaign in the Golden State with a jam-packed rally at the Wiltern Theatre on Wednesday night.
Though the Vermont senator faces a steep uphill climb in the delegate math, he vowed to fight all the way to June 7, when California closes out the primary season.
"If we win the California primary with a decent vote, we're going together to the White House," he said, to raucous applause.
As Sanders spoke, the Public Policy Institute of California released a new survey showing a close race on the Democratic side. The poll, conducted March 6-15, found Hillary Clinton leading Sanders by 48 to 41 percent.
The poll also found a stark generational divide, with 63 percent of voters aged 18-44 siding with Sanders, to just 22 percent for Clinton. For those aged 45 and up, it was the reverse, with Clinton taking 63 percent to Sanders' 27 percent.
The crowd at the Wiltern skewed young for a political rally. Keylee Sudduth, 26, of East Hollywood, said she's volunteered at phone banks, making it the first campaign she's been involved in. She said she was drawn by Sanders' authenticity, and his emphasis on women's equality and student debt. She was not persuaded by the idea that it's time for the Democratic Party to come together behind the frontrunner.
"Major states haven't been able to vote yet," she said. "The Democratic Party should rally behind the candidate the people are rallying behind."
Voters preparing for the June 7 California primary shouldn't expect to see endless television campaign ads from Sen. Bernie Sanders for the next two and a half months.
Sanders said Wednesday during a visit to Los Angeles that instead he is counting on a ground game of liberal organizations — including the labor and environmental movements — to help him continue to attract large crowds and, he hopes, generate momentum.
"You're going to see me here more than you feel comfortable with," Sanders told the Los Angeles Times during a 50-minute meeting with the editorial board Tuesday. "We think we have a path to victory and that path absolutely has to come through California."
The Vermont senator noted only 630,000 people live in his state, and while it might rival California's progressiveness, "California is not Vermont ... it's an entirely different world for us and it is a little bit intimidating."
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As for his next steps in California, "You will see very large rallies in city after city after city," he said, a few hours before a planned rally at the Wiltern in Los Angeles.
Instead of spending "zillions of dollars by running a handful of 30-second ads" in the state's many expensive media markets, Sanders said he would mobilize "tens of thousands" of volunteers in California for what he calls a ground game campaign.
"This is just a tough state, it is so, so big," he said. "We are here, we are going to do everything we can to win this state, to win it big."
Outside Sen. Bernie Sanders' rally Wednesday evening in Los Angeles, two women were arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure, police said.
The two women, both ages 20 to 25, had "disrobed" outside the Wiltern Theatre, revealing a slogan scrawled on their bodies: "Feel the Bern," said LAPD Officer Mike Lopez.
Police were concerned that the women's breasts were on view outside the packed theater, located in Koreatown at Western Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard.
"We asked them to put their clothes on and they refused," Lopez said.
Both women were expected to be booked on a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure.
..At an Arizona rally last weekend, a Los Angeles woman interrupted Sanders' speech with "Stop Fascism" etched on her back, the Washington Post reported. She had "Free the Nipple" stickers on her body, referring to the movement advocating for the right of women to be topless in public.
It's unclear if the women arrested by the LAPD were connected with the Free the Nipple movement. As the women were arrested, shouts could be heard including, "My body, my choice" and "Free the nipple," according to video of the incident obtained by KABC-TV Channel 7.
Calling Arizona's administration of last night's Democratic primary "a disgrace," Bernie Sanders suggested Wednesday that turnout was significantly tamped down as a result of the long lines voters faced.
While Sanders didn't directly question the outcome of the race -- which Hillary Clinton won easily, 58 percent to 40 percent -- the Vermont senator and his angry supporters implied that thousands of voters may have been denied the opportunity to cast ballots.
Starting out the day at a news conference in San Diego, Sanders described how he got an email from an Arizona woman who waited five hours to vote.
"We do not know how many thousands of people who wanted to vote yesterday in Arizona did not vote. We don't know if they wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or whoever," he said. "But in the United States of America, democracy is the foundation of our way of life. People should not have to wait five hours to vote and what happened yesterday in Arizona is a disgrace."
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State Sen. Martin Quezada, who endorsed the Vermont senator, pointed out that there were only 60 polling locations in Maricopa County compared to the last presidential election where there were 200.
"I think that candidates from all sides, not only Sen. Sanders but also Secretary Clinton and the Republican candidates as well -- I think that a lot of their campaigns should be very upset about the way that these races were handled yesterday," Quezada told POLITICO. "In particular, I think the districts like mine out in the West Valley which is a very poor, very high minority community, we were impacted to a greater extent. The longer lines had a huge impact on our voters. The lack of polling places within a reasonable distance were a huge impact for us and I think that as a result some of the campaigns that might have taken voters from those communities may have suffered more than other campaigns. And I think that's a very legitimate concern that the campaigns should have."
While Donald Trump and Ted Cruz played to fear and racism after the Brussels terror attacks, Bernie Sanders called for international unity to destroy ISIS.
Bernie Sanders responded to the Brussels attacks by saying:
We offer our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones in this barbaric attack and to the people of Brussels who were the target of another cowardly attempt to terrorize innocent civilians. We stand with our European allies to offer any necessary assistance in these difficult times.
Today’s attack is a brutal reminder that the international community must come together to destroy ISIS. This type of barbarism cannot be allowed to continue.
Compare what Sanders said with the bigoted pandering of Ted Cruz, “For years, the west has tried to deny this enemy exists out of a combination of political correctness and fear. We can no longer afford either. Our European allies are now seeing what comes of a toxic mix of migrants who have been infiltrated by terrorists and isolated, radical Muslim neighborhoods. We will do what we can to help them fight this scourge, and redouble our efforts to make sure it does not happen here. We need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaida or ISIS presence. We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized. We need to secure the southern border to prevent terrorist infiltration. And we need to execute a coherent campaign to utterly destroy ISIS. The days of the United States voluntarily surrendering to the enemy to show how progressive and enlightened we can be are at an end. Our country is at stake.”
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There is no comparison between the racism and bigotry of Cruz and Trump and the statement of Sen. Sanders. Bernie Sanders is prepared to lead an international coalition to destroy ISIS. Trump and Cruz are only looking to spread hate of immigrants and Muslims. Sanders demonstrated the integrity and strength that is completely missing in the top two Republican candidates for president.
While Cruz and Trump sounded like cowardly bigots, Bernie Sanders showed the values of a president.
Media organizations covering Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination spent about $181,000 on flying with the candidate on planes chartered by the campaign during February.
The Sanders campaign reported that 27 media organizations — including local outlets Burlington Free Press, WPTZ and WCAX — traveled on charter flights with Sanders as the primary election shifted into gear, according to a Federal Election Commission report. The Associated Press and Bloomberg traveled most often (and spent the most) on flying with Sanders.
Among Vermont-based media, WPTZ, owned by Hearst Stations Inc., spent the most on charter flights, outspending The New York Times by about $2,300.
Kyle Grimes, WPTZ president and general manager, said his organization has covered Sanders in the same way it covered former Gov. Howard Dean's run for the presidential nomination in 2004.
"Covering a local candidate for president is an extraordinary happening," Grimes said. "We felt and continue to think that it was important to bring that story back to the people Vermont."
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In recent filings, the Sanders campaign also addressed concerns the FEC raised in a Feb.25 letter that cited problems with his campaign's February finance report. The campaign refunded individual campaign contributions in excess of legal limits and confirmed the U.S. citizenship or permanent residency of individuals flagged by the FEC.
No Democrat would ever insist Bernie Sanders drop out of the race, Sen. Sherrod Brown told Politico this week. “I don’t think any Democrat should call on him to get out,” he said. “Almost no Democrat I know would say that. And shouldn’t.”
The Democrats won’t force him out of the race, no; they’ll just smother him with smarmy condescension. Sen. Claire McCaskill, for instance, tells Politico that “what’s important is not whether or not he gets out, but how he campaigns. If the contrast is now about what separates us from Donald Trump, then I think it’s fine.” Did you hear that, Sanders? You have McCaskill’s permission to continue campaigning as long as you only speak about how Democrats are better than Donald Trump. “It’s good [for Sanders] to continue to raise the concerns that people have,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen says, similarly, “but I think it ought to be in the context of, ‘This is the difference between the Democrats and Republicans in this race.’ ” It’s unclear where either McCaskill or Shaheen got the perception that Sanders is campaigning to be the rapid-response director of the Democratic National Committee.
The question within the Democratic Party is more about how he should campaign for the remainder of the primary season. This is where the problems come in. Sanders and his supporters, of course, would like to continue campaigning aggressively in order to win or at least to keep the heat on Clinton. Clinton and her supporters, which include the vast majority of the Democratic Party apparatus, would like Sanders to back the hell off and not put her in any uncomfortable positions.
Putting Clinton in uncomfortable positions is exactly what Sanders wants to do. His continued presence in the race performs the valuable service of cornering her into commitments she otherwise may not feel comfortable making. In other words: He pulls her to the left. This is simultaneously why Sanders won’t stop competing against Clinton one second before he’s required to and why the Democratic Party apparatus would like him to stop competing with her altogether.
Consider what would have happened had Sanders dropped out before the last debate in Miami. There would have been no debate, duh. And if there hadn’t been a debate, Clinton would never have been cornered into pledging not to deport any children or any adults without criminal records. That was an extremely important moment for progressive immigration reform activists and not a commitment she would have made in a vacuum. Two Democratic debates remain.
These are the sorts of positions that begin to give Democratic leaders the willies. Sure, the entire party has moved leftward on immigration in recent years. Not every elected Democrat, though, will be pleased to defend his or her party standard-bearer’s position that only criminal adults should be deported. And party operatives will worry that this position veers too far from the center.
As an American living abroad, I rarely think of myself as belonging to any sort of expat bloc, even though, taken together, we would constitute the 12th most populous state: there are 8.7 million US citizens living outside the country. I did, however, vote in the Democratic primary as part of this constituency.
Democrats Abroad will send 13 delegates (as well as eight superdelegates) to the Democratic convention, which is more than Wyoming. The results came in a few days ago, and Bernie Sanders is the winner.
He is, in fact, the overwhelming winner: 69% of the vote, to Clinton’s 31%, with just under 35,000 votes cast internationally. In the UK, which had the most overseas voters of any country, he gained 62%. Of seven expat Democrats in Afghanistan, five voted for Sanders and two for Clinton. She came top only in the Dominican Republic, Singapore and Nigeria.
It’s hard to know what to make of this, so far-flung and generally unpolled is this particular subset of voters. Are Americans who go abroad more liberal, or do they become more liberal as a result? Two of my sons were old enough to vote in this primary – both did – and they’ve never lived in the US.
It’s even harder to know what to make of the 75 Americans living abroad who went to the trouble of registering as a Democrat in order to vote “Don’t Know”; five were in the UK. It was raining on the day I went. And cold. If you hadn’t made up your mind, why would you bother?
If it’s an interesting, and potentially revealing, win for Bernie.
Bernie Sanders's well-oiled fundraising machine is showing no signs of slowing down. For the second straight month, Sanders relied on small donors to outraise Hillary Clinton, raking in $14 million more in February, according to numbers released on Sunday by the Federal Election Commission.
Sanders has now received $77 million from those giving less than $200, while Clinton has received $32 million from the same category, data from the Campaign Finance Institute shows.
Sanders's strength with these kinds of donors has been clear for months. But most campaign finance experts say they have been awed by the durability of his fundraising prowess: Sanders has now received more in small contributions than even Barack Obama had at this point in 2008, according to Michael J. Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute.
"This money is just bubbling up from everywhere," says Bob Biersack, a senior fellow at the Center for Responsive Politics, "and there's nothing that would cause it to stop."
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"You have to have enough funding to continue to be a visible campaign, with people and staff on the ground," Biersack said. "Sanders raised an incredible amount in February. He will have enough resources."
That's going to be particularly important for Sanders's search for delegates in bigger states, like Pennsylvania and New York, where it will be crucial to have well-staffed ground games, according to Biersack.