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Thousands Turn Out For Sanders In Rock Hill:
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders brought his populist call for a “political revolution” to Rock Hill on Saturday, capping a daylong South Carolina tour with a rally that drew more than 3,000 chanting supporters to Winthrop University.
“We need a government that represents all of us and not just the billionaires,” he told a packed Byrnes Auditorium.
The U.S. senator from Vermont spoke for more than hour in a speech frequently interrupted by chants of “Ber-nie! Ber-nie!”
Sanders’ second visit to South Carolina came two days after a new Quinnipiac poll showed him virtually tied with rival Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Though Clinton leads in national polls, he has outpolled her in New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first 2016 primary.
The Clinton campaign said this month they see South Carolina, which holds the Democrats’ second primary, as their firewall, along with the rest of the South. That’s because more than half the state’s Democratic voters are African American.
On Saturday, Sanders spoke first to students at historically black Benedict College in Columbia, where he decried institutional racism. In Rock Hill, he was introduced by Cornel West, an African American scholar who praised the candidate’s civil rights record and said Sanders “came out of the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.”
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/...
Corbyns Win May Be A Sign:
Jeremy Corbyn’s stunning transformation from perennial leftist rebel to leader of Britain’s Labour Party upended British politics on Saturday and delivered a striking message worldwide: At this anti-establishment moment, parties of the left are just as vulnerable to populist takeovers as parties of the right.
The Corbyn victory represented an extraordinary rebuke to Labour’s more centrist powers-that-be, especially to former prime minister Tony Blair, who had campaigned vigorously against Mr. Corbyn and who argued that his selection would mean the party’s “annihilation.”
But interventions from Mr. Blair and other party heavyweights apparently did little to halt Mr. Corbyn’s momentum and may have even backfired.
As the summer campaign progressed, the former union organizer evolved from a fringe candidate who barely made it on the ballot to a grass-roots phenomenon who, white-haired and rumpled at 66, stirred the passions of a new generation of Labour activists.
Mr. Corbyn’s rise echoes that of another senior-citizen socialist who has come out of nowhere this year to rattle his party’s center-left establishment. Like Mr. Corbyn, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has been waging a surprisingly effective insurgency in a campaign that was once thought to be unwinnable.
“If you’re Bernie Sanders, you’ll take some heart from this,” said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London. “If you’re Hillary Clinton, you’ll be nervous.”
Sanders Speaks Volumes:
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders discussed major issues that are facing the nation during a town hall meeting Saturday evening at the Florence Civic Center.
The town hall meeting opened with emotional words from a Francis Marion University graduate.
She talked about her struggles as a single mother trying to provide for her child and her education.
“We need an individual to lead us to understand the American story and my friend Bernie Sanders gets it”, Sharmane Anderson said.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders says he wants to focus on all the issues impacting people from income to inequality to healthcare.
“Whatever the struggle is, is when millions of people come together and stand up and say enough is enough,” mentioned Sanders.
But his views on student debt, is what caught the attention of those who attended the town hall meeting.
Bernie Will Be In North Carolina:
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is hoping the big crowds he's attracted across the country will continue in North Carolina.
The Vermont senator scheduled a campaign rally Sunday evening at the Greensboro Coliseum's special events center, which can seat 5,000 people.
The Greensboro stop is part of a three-state weekend swing through the South, where he faces a challenge overcoming strong support for party nominee front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton in the black community. The North Carolina primary is expected in mid-March.
Charles M Blow Writes Bernie & The Black Vote:
There is an earnest, if snappy, aura to Sanders that is laudable and refreshing. One doesn’t sense the stench of ambition or the revolting unctuousness of incessant calculation.
There is an idealistic crusader in the man, possibly to the point of being quixotic, but at least it doesn’t come off as having been corrupted by money or power or the God complex that so often attends those in pursuit of the seat behind the Resolute Desk.
Sanders’s message of revolutionary change to save a flailing middle class and challenge the sprawling influence of what he calls “the billionaire class” has struck a nerve with a fervid following.
I spoke with Senator Sanders by phone on Friday for nearly 30 minutes about his campaign’s need to reach more African-American voters, and I asked if he was worried about this need to broaden his appeal.
While he resisted the word “worried,” he did acknowledge that: “Clearly, if we are going to do well nationally, it’s absolutely imperative that we aggressively reach out and bring the African-American community and the Latino community into our campaign, and that is exactly what we’re working on right now.”
Sanders seemed to understand the challenge ahead of him. He has to win the African-Americans who supported Obama and do so against Clinton’s enormous name identification and the deep connections the Clinton machine has built in the state. And then there’s Biden.
Bernie Seeks A Boost In SC:
Sen. Bernie Sanders decried “institutional racism” and called for major criminal justice system reforms — including an end to privately run prisons — while speaking at a historically black college here on Saturday.
The Vermont Independent, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, highlighted his proposals to eliminate federal, state and local contracts for privately run prisons within two years. He wants to shift money toward investments in jobs and education.
“We need to end the absurdity of private corporations making profits by running and building prisons,” he said during an hour-long speech at Benedict College. “Companies should not be profiting from the incarceration of fellow Americans.”
The crowd of about 1,000 applauded that position and Sanders’ push to promote diversity in police departments, reduce high incarceration rates, reform mandatory minimum prison sentences and invest in drug courts.
Bernie Is Running Strong In Kansas:
The insurgent presidential candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders is injecting some unaccustomed energy and uncertainty into Kansas Democratic presidential politics.
As the self-described socialist from Vermont is surging in national polls against the once-seemingly invincible Hillary Clinton, grassroots Kansas Democrats are organizing to try to get him a win in the state’s caucuses in March that will choose their delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
They’ve been holding meetings and campaigning at public events, including the Kansas State Fair this week. And they have an active presence on Facebook locally.
Sedgwick County Democratic Party Chairwoman Terese Shumaker Johnson said Clinton has always had a lot of supporters among Kansas Democrats and it’s been fascinating to “watch them migrate to another candidate.”
While the county party doesn’t endorse candidates in contested Democratic primaries, Johnson gave a presentation on voter registration at a meeting last week in Wichita where about 40 Berniacs gathered to plan their campaign.
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“I am really thrilled to see Sanders causing this excitement because he is talking issues,” Johnson said. “What kind of conversations are coming out of that? It certainly beats the heck out of (Republican candidate Donald) Trump and his rallies, or whatever he calls them.”
Russell Fox, a professor of political science at Friends University and a Sanders supporter, said he’s not aware of any polling, but he thinks Sanders is probably about even with Clinton in Kansas.
That would track with polls in Iowa, where Sanders pulled even with Clinton last week.
A Letter to The Editor:
This country needs change. There is a man who has been in government since the ’60s and has seen the downfall of the middle class firsthand: Bernie Sanders.
Look up his track record for yourself. I don't have room here to mention them all.
He supports raising corporate tax rates because no matter what the law says, corporations are not people. He also does not support the Citizens United decision, that says billionaires and corporations can buy the United States government with million-dollar campaign contributions. Basically legalized bribery.
He has had rallies in Chicago and Los Angeles that have had over 20,000 people attend. Why haven't we heard about Sanders? Because Fox "news" and CNN are owned by billionaires, the people who will get a higher tax rate if Sanders is elected.
North Dakota, we don't have to vote for someone just because they have an R in front of their name. Yet we do this year after year. No matter how ridiculous that candidate's policies are.
Sanders Speaks About The Corbyn Victory:
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) hailed the Friday election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party as a promising development in the global fight against inequality.
"At a time of mass income and wealth inequality throughout the world, I am delighted to see that the British Labour Party has elected Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader," Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement emailed to The Huffington Post Saturday. "We need leadership in every country in the world which tells the billionaire class that they cannot have it all. We need economies that work for working families, not just the people on top."
Sanders’ appreciation of Corbyn is mutual. A week before his victory, Corbyn said he was following Sanders’ campaign with "great interest."
Bernies March Through The South:
The first time Marion, Alabama, native Jonathan Carlisle heard Bernie Sanders speak, he was sold on the progressive presidential candidate’s vision—one that didn’t rely on corporate agendas and which addressed such concerns as making student loans affordable and battling structural racism. “All around me is this idea that to be conservative in the South is to be right,” says the Morehouse College political science student. Clad in a plaid shirt and thick-rimmed glasses, Carlisle stands behind a campaign table in the former downtown Macy’s building as one of the Vermont senator’s 100,000 volunteers nationwide. “He’s the future of what American politics should look like.”
In the heart of the Deep South, hallowed ground for conservative candidates, the 74-year-old, Jewish, self-described democratic socialist senator yesterday made his first campaign stop in Atlanta, pledging to make the country fairer and more equal for all Americans—even though his presence in this red state likely won’t affect which party gets the most electoral votes in November 2016.
A little after 6 o’clock last night, Sanders gave an extended stump speech and shook hands with roughly 1,200 small-time donors—the minimum contribution to attend the event was $50, a pittance in comparison to the $2,700 minimum contribution required to attend Hillary Clinton’s first Georgia fundraiser last May—directly across Peachtree Street from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
Speaking to the Atlanta crowd for over an hour, Sanders came off like a lefty economic professor with something of a dry wit, vowing to close the income inequality gap, expand the public welfare system, and reform campaign finance rules. He blasted the billionaire-driven election process upheld by the Citizens United v. FEC ruling, reminding supporters that his surprising ascent in the polls—he’s currently in a dead heat with establishment Democratic candidate Clinton—was achieved by a campaign that averages $31.20 per donation.