Here is the video of Bernie Sanders announcing his candidacy for president. It is a short and powerful speech that hits hard on the key issue that we have become an oligarchy and have to take back control from the wealthy if democracy is to have any hope of surviving.
He says that he is running to take the country away from the millionaires and billionaires who pour money into candidates. He said that he has never run negative campaign ads against his rival candidates and will not do so this time either. He has said he is not interested in attacking Hillary Clinton but of course when he attacks millionaires and billionaires, that is the very class to which she belongs and those people are her close friends and supporters.
The Washington Post says that Bernie Sanders’s campaign has got off to a surprisingly good start. Of course, the only measure they really care about is money and that is the focus of the story.
Advisers to Bernie Sanders have argued that his grassroots network of small-dollar donors could raise him the roughly $50 million the independent senator from Vermont will need to run a credible, competitive campaign in the Democratic presidential primaries.
They may be right.
On Friday, the Sanders campaign announced that it has raised more than $1.5 million online in the 24 hours since he announced his candidacy. It is a surprisingly heavy haul for a candidate whom some in the Democratic chattering class have cast off as a gadfly and viewed as unable to wrest the nomination from the overwhelming favorite, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The donations came from a broad base of supporters — some 35,000 donors who gave an average of $43.54 a piece, according to the Sanders campaign. The campaign also said it signed up more than 100,000 supporters through its website, building what it calls a “mass movement.”
Clinton has not released any details about her fundraising totals, online or otherwise. But the Sanders haul outpaces the three major Republican candidates who already have announced. In the first 24 hours since launching their campaigns, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) raised $1.25 million and Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) raised about $1 million each, according to their campaigns.
The fact that he raised more money than Rubio, Paul, and Cruz won’t stop the media from treating this trio of right wingers as people to be taken seriously while Sanders will be dismissed as a fringe candidate.
I too have contributed to the campaign by going to his website but my contribution would not be part of that total since I gave only yesterday. If you want to know where he stands on the issues, you can go here.
The Daily Show covered Sanders’ announcement.
(This clip aired on April 30, 2015. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Nightly Show outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)
Jon Stewart predicts that despite being a man of consistent and decent principles, Sanders will get crushed by Clinton. But I am not so sure. Sanders will undoubtedly keep hammering away at the dominance of the oligarchy because that is something he passionately cares about and will not be distracted from it. He is aided by the fact that they don’t even bother to hide the fact that they are buying candidates and that there is a quid pro quo. This is an issue that has been simmering for some time and I am hoping that the Sanders spark will set it ablaze.
There is a rough-hewn, unkempt, orneriness about Sanders that gives him an air of authenticity that distinguishes him from the other candidates who are all carefully coiffed and programmed and I think (and hope) that people may be ready for that.
I donated, too. It is astonishingly refreshing to have someone running who genuinely cares about people, and one can only hope the masses will see and appreciate that. I’m trying very hard not to add a “However…” sentence, since I really, really, want him to at least make a huge difference.
It is SO refreshing to see an American politician with a clue and honest answers.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if democrats accepted the fact that Sanders is the better candidate and turn their back on Clinton? And republican voters realize their candidate -- whoever wall street selects -- is an utter idiot?
We can only hope. The extremism on both sides (and the failure of the US to have more than two sides) make it both difficult yet very possible for Sanders to win.
I left the Democratic Party several years ago because IMO they were not fighting hard enough for progressive issues while trying to win elections, but instead appeared to not want to lose an election.
As a resent transplant to Iowa, I was going to again register as an independent, but I now plan to register as a Democrat and go to the caucuses and caucus for Bernie Sanders. From what I understand it is a several hour to all day event and is not as simple as casting your vote, but being in a state that has undue influence over the national elections I actually feel compelled to do this now that he is in the race.
Supposedly he is going to put out specific proposals on several issues, which would be a novel idea in this day and age of politics.
This turn of events is exactly what republicans would be hoping for -- a candidate to split the democratic vote just enough that the republican candidate has a decent shot at getting a plurality of the votes. As much as I would like to vote for Sanders, I simply cant because he has no realistic shot of winning and every vote cast in his favor is drawing votes away from another candidate that does have a realistic shot at winning. The fact that he is a socialist pretty much torpedoes his chances, given that the word socialist has such extremely negative connotations in contemporary American culture. Sometimes you have to take what you can get, which unfortunately, seems to be Hillary Clinton, which is not an ideal candidate, but infinitely better than any Republican alternative
This might even be the tipping point for me to become a US citizen. I moved here from England in 1990, but never felt inspired to apply for citizenship. The thought of voting for Bernie, though, makes all the difference.
I agree that it is refreshing to see someone of principle run (so refreshing that I’ve donated to his campaign, a first for me).
I do agree with Stuart, Ms. Clinton will crush him but I can only hope that it will drag the political conversation away from the right and far right into more reasonable territory in which things like explicit racism and sexism, wealth inequity, bloated military budgets, and oligarchical & corporate tax avoidance may be discussed.
JDiggity,
I am not sure what you mean about him splitting the vote. Sanders is not running an an independent, he is running for the Democratic nomination in the primaries where Republicans are not involved. If he wins, he will be the sole Democratic candidate against the Republican. It will not be a three-way split with Clinton.
parasiteboy,
That’s great that you can take part in the caucuses. I wish I could.
The American readers of this blog are hardly representative of all voters but I wonder how many of them (like you and raym) have been so fed up with past candidates on offer that they now have a new burst of hope and energy. How many such ‘silent Democrats’ are out there?
Apparently, liberals have learned nothing from the last fake “progressive” they supported. Once again, they are supporting a DP candidate with a compromised history expecting he will magically transform into a liberal once in office.
Bernie Sanders has supported almost every war we have been in since the Clinton regime. He voted in support of Israel’s recent massacre in Gaza and is an unapologetic supporter of Israel. That alone ought to disqualify him from any progressive’s consideration as a viable candidate.
He is overrated on the domestic front as well, having initially voted against the Patriot Act but later voting to make 14 sections of it permanent law. He spouted a lot of rhetoric about single-payer health care, but then sold out to Obama’s corporate-created insurance company enrichment scam.
He is a good one for populist rhetoric, but what he should be judged on what he does, not what he says.
If you want progressive change do not vote for anyone associated with the Democrats. It’s that simple. I am hoping Cynthia McKinney will run. I would support her wholeheartedly.
https://www.popularresistance.org/lets-not-be-fooled-by-bernie-sanders/