It's not because I think he's a Knight on a White Steed coming to save us all from disaster.
It's not because I think he's going to raise "the most money ever raised for a presidential campaign".
It's because I believe that we are at a moment in history when a populist, people-powered presidential campaign is the only one which can win by bringing the 'never voter' cohort out of the shadows and into the voting booth in numbers large enough to snatch the reins of power from the Republicans - by voting not just a Democratic President into Office, but enough Democratic candidates into US Congress seats and Statehouse seats, too.
Looking at our last thirty or forty years, you can clearly see how the Democratic Party establishment has dragged the entire Base of the Party rightward in response to the national mood. Bill Clinton won two presidential elections by leading that charge because it was the right move at that time.
But this is NOT the early 1990s, coming down from a massive re-orientation of national mood from the explosive 1960s to the 'morning in America' revisionist history of the religious right and the era of the Reagan Democrats. Where a cautious, middle of the road third way campaign was the only way to get those conservative democratic votes.
This is the nascent 21st century, where gay Americans now legally Serve in our Armed Forces, where same-sex couples can marry in all 50 states (if not in every county in each of them yet), where Climate Change is knocking at the door and not a scary movie promising a dire future, where California is running out of potable water in the next couple of years, where the Black Lives Matter movement may finally ring in equality under law in a way envisioned in 1863 and expounded upon a century later by MLK in 1963 but has never been fully realized in These United States...
where a whole host of problems are clamoring for our attention day in and day out.
And this is the national government we currently have to fight back against all of that:
According to a Gallup Poll released in August 2014, the 113th Congress had the highest disapproval rating of any Congress since 1974, when data first started being collected: 83% of Americans surveyed said that they disapproved of the job Congress was doing, while only 13% said that they approved.
President Barack Obama, whom history will note as one of our great Presidents in the category of Accomplishments,
isn't even breaking 50% in favorables in polling at this point.
Our government isn't working for anyone except the extremely wealthy anymore and people are fed up. The question is, how much longer are they going to be willing to just sit there and do nothing to change things?
Our nation has seen other eras in which the entire country is overtaken by situations which have resulted in significant shifts in our political Parties.
History of US Political Parties circa 1820-1860 in graphic form via University of North Carolina educational website: www.learnnc.org
For the most part, these shifts have occured in the Republican Party much moreso than in the Democratic Party (see linked .pdf).
I believe we are living in just such an era.
When the Status Quo is no longer accepted by the Electorate, when the establishment candidates and their establishment ideas are soundly rejected in favor of more populist and pro-working class and (since the middle of the 20th century) middle class ideals.
Can I point to any specific facts or figures which back up this belief?
Look at that .pdf and see what preceded each one of those eras:
Social unrest, public violence, war, economic upset or financial crashes
Now take a look at our recent history:
Wars, Great Recession/2nd Great Depression, income inequality, rise of poverty, social upheaval in response to 21st century Civil Rights for gays - it's a cornucopia of UNREST of all sorts.
It's no accident that the populist, income inequality-based campaign of Bernie Sanders has appealed to so many people this summer, evidenced not only by the dollars in his campaign coffers (now reaching levels rivaling that of his main opponent, Hillary Clinton) but in the numbers of people sending in those donations (Sanders’ campaign said on Wednesday that it had passed the one-million contributor mark in the third quarter) and also turning out to campaign events for months now. Surprising numbers for a lot of the Party Establishment, who (I am certain) expected so see the rise and fall of Sanders occur before Independence Day this year.
Except that didn't happen. Instead of being a flash-in-the-pan eccentric short-lived candidate who was "only running to pull the front runner to the Left", Senator Bernie Sanders not only didn't fade away - he started to garner the attention of the active Base of the Democratic Left and his small contributors started to send him Millions of dollars.
We've learned already that for the 3rd quarter of 2015, Bernie Sanders raised more than $25.5 million dollars, none of it from SuperPACs and an average donation amount of about $30 dollars.
Hillary Clinton in the same period raised $28 million according to "a Clinton aide".
Clinton has now raised, to date, over $75 million and Sanders only (adding the $15 million noted in July as "to date" total to the 3rd quarter equals) $45.5 million to date.
So, Clinton has spent over $30 million dollars while her numbers have steadily fallen off and Sanders numbers have risen significantly. Leading to headlines like:
Bernie Sanders’s $26 million cash haul is a major problem for Hillary Clinton
Bernie Sanders' fundraising rivals Hillary Clinton's in 3rd quarter
Clinton raises $28 million but Sanders’ haul is too close for comfort
More importantly, some of the details about that fundraising are of particular note. From the WaPo piece linked above:
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton technically beat Bernie Sanders by $2 million in the chase for campaign cash over the past three months. But that isn't the story — not even close.
Clinton held 58 fundraising events to raise her total; Sanders held seven. As of the end of September, Sanders had brought in 1.3 million total donations from 650,000 individuals since he began running. Clinton's campaign did not release how many total donors she has. And Sanders ended September with $25 million in the bank; Clinton did not release how much money her campaign had on hand.
In an era where the first question asked of any candidate for office is "are you viable", but which really means "can you raise enough money to win", it's looking more and more like Bernie Sanders has answered both of those questions with a resounding, "Hell YES!"
Viewing the arc of his campaign this year in light of the continuing polls showing extraordinarily high levels of support by the American Electorate for the idea that we need to change things so that this is no longer true: "when so few have so much and so many have so little"; I believe it is time for Bernie Sanders supporters to stop responding to the claim posited by so many so frequently that "Sanders can't win" and instead we need to keep spreading the News that Bernie Sanders is in it to win it - and he's proving day after week after month now THAT HE CAN.
The campaign of a Man of the People, preaching a need for a political revolution to turn the story of America from one of greed, malfeasance, corruption of our electoral process and the rise of the Oligarchs into one as old as the nation...
Bernie Sanders for President
Man of the People
The text in that image which is too small for most people to read easily:
Left side:
Bernie Sanders is a Democratic candidate for President of the United States. In 2006, he was elected to the U.S. Senate after 16 years as Vermont's sole congressman in the House of Representatives. Bernie is now serving his second term in the U.S. Senate after winning re-election in 2012 with 71 percent of the vote. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he attended James Madison High School, Brooklyn College, and the University of Chicago. After graduating, he moved to Vermont where he worked as a carpenter. In 1981, he was elected as mayor of Burlington by a mere 10 votes. As mayor, Bernie's leadership helped transform Burlington into one of the most exciting and livable small cities in America. Under his administration, the city made major strides.
Right side:
In Congress, Bernie has fought tirelessly for working families, focusing on the shrinking middle class and income inequality. Bernie has been called a "practical and successful legislator" and he was dubbed the "amendment king" in the House of Representatives for passing more amendments than any other member of Congress. As chairman of the Senate COmmitttee on Veteran's Affairs, Bernie worked across the aisle to "bridge Washington's toxic partisan divide and cut one of the most significant deals in years." In 2015, Democratic leadership tapped Bernie to serve as the caucus' ranking member on the Senate Budget Comittee. Bernie lives in Burlington, Vermont with his wife Jane. He has four children and seven grandchildren.