Bernie Introduced by Son
New Hampshire has a reputation for, and long history of retail politics. This is one of the main reasons put forth for it’s first in the nation Presidential Primary status, despite the fact that it hardly represents the rest of the country from a demographic point of view. To most of us residents of this mostly white, mostly rural early primary state, that means meeting the candidate in someone’s living room or at a local diner or coffee shop. It is a retail politics that has always forced the candidates to garner votes one ballot at a time.
But if this past weekend is any indication, Bernie Sanders is turning this paradigm upside down. He is gathering his votes in the thousands at a time, and complains jokingly of having trouble finding venues large enough to hold the crowds that want to hear his message. The crowds were large and definitely feeling the Bern.
Saturday at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, Bernie spoke to an audience of about a thousand, according to an estimate from an activist friend who attended the town hall meeting. I am using this figure because on their respective websites, the Manchester Union Leader, the paper of record in NH, did not cover the event and WMUR, the states lone tv station briefly stated:.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D, Vermont) drew a big crowd Saturday in the Granite State.(emphasis mine)
He followed the SNHU address with a packed Exeter Town Hall, for yes, another town hall meeting.
Sunday, after talking to overflow crowds at the American Legion Hall in Rollinsford and the Bessie Rowell Community Center in Franklin, Bernie held his 5th event of the weekend with a crowd of around 500 at the Common Man Inn & Restaurant in Claremont NH, attendance according to a senior campaign staffer. I was fortunate to have a seat in the ballroom where Bernie spoke to 200, with an overflow room and more people outside. Please share my view from the floor at this event below the fold.
Claremont was once a great manufacturing center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and even as recently as the late 1980s provided many good manufacturing jobs. But today like towns and cities all over rural America, Claremont has lost its good paying jobs to outsourcing abroad, and was therefore a perfect spot for Senator Sanders to speak his populist economic message. The setting was a converted 19th century brick mill building on the banks of the Sugar river. The crowd was a mix of young and old, mostly white faces.
So why is Bernie drawing such large and enthusiastic crowds? I think it’s because he makes each of us feel like he’s talking to us one on one. I know I felt like he was talking just to me, or for me. Most of us would agree that President Obama is a superb orator, but Bernie live matches his power, and connects with you in a way no other speaker I have ever seen does. It is an almost surreal sensation the bonds are so strong.
Enough is Enough
He began his remarks with "enough is enough" and quickly moved to the issue I consider the most important to humanity as a whole: climate change. He said:
...the reality is that this country today faces more serious problems than at any time since the Great Depression and, if you include the planetary crisis of climate change, it may well be that the challenges we face now are more dire than any time in our modern history. (emphasis mine)
Bernie came back to it later in the speech saying:
...The debate is over. The scientific community has spoken. Climate change is real. .. We have a relatively short window of opportunity to prevent devastating problems.
And it came back to him in the Q & A session when asked about electrified rail, as he quoted the numbers of 28% GHG emissions for the US transportation sector, as if he had the EPA Fast Facts in front of him, instead of quoting from memory.
He gave his standard economic stump speech, and yet it sounded new. The billionaire class vs us the 99%. Free tuition and student loan refinancing. Youth unemployment and security for the elderly. Sentencing guidelines for marijuana and a way back from jail to society. A pathway to citizenship for immigrants. It contained all the topics I and the rest of the audience wanted to hear about, and it was fresh and seemed original.
Bernie & Crowd in Claremont NH
Then came the part I had waited anxiously to hear. He finally spoke of racism of all kinds to all people. But he also named Sandra Bland, and told us how she wouldn’t have died if she were white. He said Black Lives Matter and named other names like Freddie Grey and Sam Dubose. And I said to myself this man really gets it, he learned from his stumble at Netroots Nation. And the audience roared its approval.
Then he closed with perhaps his best line of all:
It’s not about me, it’s about you and the millions like you
I thought to myself, you’re right Bernie it is up to us, and the feeling of freedom was both exhilarating and self empowering. It is about me and all of us. The road starts here