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Bernie Speaks At Liberty University:
Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke Monday at an evangelical school where he appealed to students’ sense of morality and justice.
Sanders, a Vermont independent running for the Democratic presidential nomination, used most of his speech at Liberty University to talk about his fight against income inequality.
He conceded that many in the audience would disagree with his support for abortion rights and gay marriage. But he suggested they might agree that, at a time when “a handful of people have wealth beyond comprehension,” other people shouldn’t have to struggle to feed their families, put a roof over their heads or visit a doctor.
“When we talk about morality and when we talk about justice, we have to, in my view, understand that there is no justice when so few have so much and so many have so little,” he said, drawing applause.
More:
The setting was a curious choice for Sanders, whose liberal record and self-described democratic socialist views would seem at odds with the strict social conservatism espoused at Liberty. But he framed his arguments about income inequality, health care and workers’ rights as in keeping with the religious traditions embraced by social conservatives. The fact that Sanders was willing to take his message to such an unconventional audience speaks to part of the reason why his campaign message is resonating so widely across the country.
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Sanders, who is Jewish, framed his approach as one which draws from the traditions of the world’s major religions.
“I am motivated by a vision which exists in all of the great religions — in Christianity, in Judaism, in Islam, in Buddhism and others — and which is so beautifully and clearly stated in Matthew 7:12,” he said. “It states, ‘So in everything, do to others what you would have them to do to you, for this sums up the Law and the prophets.’ That is the Golden Rule. ‘Do unto others what you would have them do to you.’ That is the Golden Rule, and it is not very complicated.”
The Guardian:
“It is important for us as Christians to hear the views of people who we don’t agree in,” said Hicks. “I think it was a great opportunity for all of us to be a light to him and share the gospel, and I hope that all of us here love the Lord and though we share different views, we all believe in the same God.”
Logan Price, 19, added: “I was concerned if we were to attack him, would he attack us? He gained respect, but I don’t know he necessarily convinced people of things.”
Sanders responded to the abortion question by urging Christian conservatives to look at the condition of children who have been born, pointing to high rates of childhood poverty and the paucity of educational chances for those facing high student tuition fees.
But even his call for free public college tuition was met with scepticism among the young crowd.
“There is a lot of income inequality and those issues need to be addressed,” said Matt Ozburn. “It all sounds good, but I don’t know how [it works] in the long run.
“Let’s take free college, for example. I would love that. But in the long run how would that affect the national debt and would it really work?”
Those few Sanders supporters who attended from outside Liberty seemed more impressed.
“I was of course noticing some of the tension in the room, but I think he made some good points,” said Nicolette Mann, of Longwood University in nearby Farmville.
“There is a lot more ground that we can all be unified on, and we shouldn’t focus on the two points we always disagree on.
One More:
It’s not clear how many minds Sen. Bernie Sanders changed on Monday or if he picked up a single vote speaking at Liberty University. But garnering voters wasn’t the point of his visit, and the senator’s willingness to take his message to a bastion of conservatism underscores why his long-shot campaign has gained “Bernmentum” and is now leading former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire among Democrats.
Student body President Quincy Thompson, a senior majoring in pastoral leadership, told me that all the students he spoke with about Sen. Sanders’s appearance were “excited to have him and hear a different perspective. . . . It woke a lot of students up to the severity of the poverty that is here in the United States.”
Sen. Sanders was positive and respectful without giving ground on issues that matter most to him. He was the same person who has been traveling the country talking about income inequality for months.
“It is easy to go out and talk to people who agree with you,” he said Monday. It’s harder, but more important, to try to find common ground with people with whom you disagree. The popularity of “outsider” candidates so far in the 2016 presidential campaign suggests that voters would like to see more of this in our politics.
Bernies Rise Is More Impressive Than Trumps:
Donald Trump’s rise to the top of the Republican polls has been incredible. But it’s obscuring a story that might ultimately prove more meaningful: Bernie Sanders’s increasingly serious challenge to Hillary Clinton.
New polls show Sanders leading Hillary Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire. His leads aren’t Trump-size — at least not yet — but they were secured without the wall-to-wall media coverage that attends Trump, without the name recognition Trump brought to the race, and against a much stronger frontrunner than Trump faced.
And Sanders has built those leads while remaining, well, Sanders. He promised he wouldn’t run a negative campaign, and he hasn’t — a fact that Clinton allies privately mention with relief. He hasn’t signed on with a Super PAC or begun taking money from the kinds of donors he campaigns against. His campaign has been free of stunts and provocations and dense with policy proposals and issue papers. He’s attracting supporters the old-fashioned way — by convincing people he’s the kind of politician they want to back.
Sanders is still a long shot. He trails Clinton badly in national polls and in more diverse states. But if his rise continues, it may prove more durable, and more significant, than Trump's political stardom.
Sanders Does Things His Own Way:
For Sanders, it’s all about the message, not the messenger. He wears his anti-establishment attitude like a favorite old sweatshirt. His call for economic justice is a song he’s been singing all his life. His record in Congress matches his rhetoric today. His speeches are about policy, not biography.
At the AFL-CIO Labor Day Breakfast in Manchester, he runs through a list of policy priorities: a $15 minimum wage; free tuition at public colleges; overturning Citizens United; breaking up the big banks; raising Social Security benefits; a tax on financial transactions; Medicare for everybody. Specific points, strongly delivered: Sanders leaves no doubt about where he stands.
Sanders doesn’t make a lot of jokes, and doesn’t talk much about himself. He mentions his family — his wife of 27 years, four children and seven grandchildren — to set up the “family values” he’ll push in Washington: Paid parental leave, paid sick and vacation time for every employee.
Sanders is in some ways the opposite of Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well. They are of the same political generation, coming of age in the campus turmoil of the 1960s. After college, Bill and Hill headed for Arkansas, driven mostly by personal ambition. Bill got a haircut, Hillary stopped using her maiden name, and they set about the task of creating a more moderate Democratic Party, one that could win elections even in the South.
After college in Chicago, the Brooklyn-raised Sanders headed to Vermont, part of a counter-culture beachhead that still thrives in the Green Mountain state. He worked as a carpenter, a documentary maker and an activist determined to change the world. When he decided to run for office, friends urged him to curb his radical rhetoric and register as a Democrat. He refused, over and over again.
Sanders The Frontrunner?:
A new poll shows that enthusiasm among Democrats for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) shows no signs of waning any time soon, much to Hillary Clinton’s chagrin.
A CBS News poll, conducted with YouGuv, released on Sunday found Sanders has become the Democratic frontrunner among likely presidential voters in the crucial states of New Hampshire and Iowa.
In the Granite State, Sanders holds a commanding 22-point lead over the former secretary of state, garnering 52 percent support to Clinton’s 30 percent. In Iowa, those who claim they will participate in the state’s first-in-the-nation caucus prefer Sanders 43 percent to 33 percent.
But Clinton easily outruns the more liberal Sanders in South Carolina, 46 percent compared to the senator’s 23 percent.
However, Sanders trumps Clinton when it comes to overall voter excitement. Seventy-eight percent of those polled express “enthusiastic support” for the self-described democratic socialist, while Clinton only received half that amount, 39 percent.
Millenial Support At Winthrop:
It seems appropriate that Bernie Sanders finished his latest swing through South Carolina on the campus of Winthrop University on Saturday.
The 74-year-old senator from Vermont, a 25-year veteran of Congress, has become a favorite of younger voters in the race for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
Thousands lined up outside Byrnes Auditorium before the doors opened at 6:30 p.m. The venue for the event had been changed from the West Center to accommodate a crowd larger than initially expected. Byrnes has seating for 3,500, and organizers estimated about 3,000 supporters attended.
Lines of college students, along with a few not-so-young voters, snaked around the block, bracketed by blue “Bernie for President” signs.
For some, the candidate’s appearance was an educational opportunity just like any other on campus. Most students, like Annalee Bell, will be voting in their first-ever presidential election.
“We want to be able to get involved and be informed about who we’re voting for,” Bell said.
O'Reilly Makes Himself Look Foolish:
Senator Bernie Sanders hasn't wanted to visit The O'Reilly Factor often enough. So Bill O'Reilly decided to try and embarrass him with an ambush interview. But if you ask me, O'Reilly's the one who came out looking foolish.
Sanders visited The O'Reilly Factor in April but, apparently, has not wanted to come back since then. And O'Reilly - who never tires of railing against African Americans who, he says, feel entitled and are filled with grievance - decided he was so aggrieved and entitled to a Sanders interview that he sent ambush producer Jesse Watters to humiliate Sanders in revenge.
"Bernie Sanders used to appear on The Factor with us without a problem but he has been dodging us," O'Reilly said. "So we sent Watters to see him in Washington." O'Reilly smiled maliciously.
But when Watters ambushed Sanders, he merely said, "I don’t do ambush interviews. If you want to talk to us, there’s my press secretary."
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O'Reilly complained that Sanders was “always on the show, very straightforward.” But now, O'Reilly whined, “He’s big time and he doesn’t have time for us any more."
"Do you think he’s going to come on the show now?" Watters asked. His dubious tone revealed he thought it most unlikely.
"I don’t care," O'Reilly said. So, in other words, he was just being an even bigger dick by ambushing Sanders in the first place
Bernie Takes His Message To Manassas (video in link):
Long-shot Democratic presidential candidate turned early-state frontrunner Bernie Sanders rallied a crowd of more than 3000 supporters in the Northern Virginia suburbs Monday night with a progressive message he said was just and fair, not Utopian.
Sanders called on the crowd to rise up against what he called the "Billionaire class" controlling American politics.
"The only way we win is when tens of millions of Americans stand up and say loudly and clearly: 'enough is enough!'" Sanders told the crowd gathered at the Manassas fairgrounds.
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Sanders foray into Virginia could be designed to cut into what pundits have described as Clinton's southern state firewall – with a significant amount of delegates available in Southern states all voting March 1st.
Manassas was relatively friendly ground for Sanders, compared to his morning event on the campus of Liberty University, where he faced a skeptical, evangelical audience.
Sanders campaign says his next public event will be later this week in New York City.
African American Organizers For Bernie:
Will Crosby, 63, a veteran political organizer in Chicago’s bruising electoral battles, is worried that the black community will be caught flat-footed in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The way he sees things, too much of the black electorate is sleepwalking in lockstep support of Hillary Clinton. She is by far the black electorate’s favored candidate, with an 80 percent approval rate.
But Crosby thinks Bernie Sanders is the best presidential candidate for African Americans. “Bernie Sanders is talking about issues that directly affect our community and he’s doing it in a fearless way,” Crosby says. Unfortunately, he adds, Sanders’ message has yet to penetrate into the black community.
Crosby and other Chicago-based black activists have formed a group called the Bernie Brigade that attempts to showcase Sanders’ progressive platform and long history of support for the black struggle. The group canvasses for Sanders in majority-black neighborhoods and holds pro-Sanders events. “We’re still very much engaged in an educational process,” he notes. “Many in our community are unfamiliar with Bernie. They just see an elderly white man from remote, white Vermont. And, quite frankly, that’s a hard sell.”
Crosby says attitudes are easily changed when they hear Sanders’ political spiel and his policy prescriptions, especially on reforming the criminal justice system and curbing wealth inequality.