Key concerns of progressive presidential candidate are growing inequality, campaign finance reform and climate change.
Washington: Bernie Sanders, a leftist senator from Vermont normally dismissed as an eccentric idealist in presidential politics, has pulled within eight percentage points of Hillary Clinton in a straw poll of voters in a key state.
The poll, which is not binding, was held at a Democratic Party convention in Wisconsin, one of the states that will probably help decide the 2016 election.
Senator Sanders’ bid for the Democratic nomination appeared quixotic from the moment he announced it with a brief statement and press conference on a patch of grass outside the US Capitol during a break in Senate proceedings in April.
“I don’t have an endless amount of time, I have to get back,” he told reporters who were by then more used to such announcements being made at extravagant campaign events followed by tours of key states, social media campaigns and TV blitzes.
He said that day, as he has for years, that his key concerns were growing inequality, campaign finance reform and climate change.
Since then Mr Sanders has largely been ignored by a media that has focused on Mrs Clinton’s juggernaut and the ever-increasing scrum of Republicans who have joined the race.
When he is mentioned at all Mr Sanders is normally referred to as a “self-described socialist”, as though he has confessed to some sort of abnormality.
In fact Mr Sanders has a remarkable political record, albeit in a state typically kind to progressives.
Mr Sanders took on both Democrats and Republicans to become mayor of Burlington, the largest city in Vermont, winning his first municipal election in 1981 and retiring undefeated from the job in 1989.
In 1990 he won a seat in Congress, defeating a Republican incumbent by16 percentage points
After that Mr Sanders usually won his re-election by substantial margins.
In 2006 Mr Sanders ran for an open Senate seat in Vermont, facing off against a Republican billionaire who spent $US7 million of his own money, making it the most expensive political race in state history.
Mr Sanders crushed his opponent by a two-to-one margin and won re-election in 2012, winning 71 per cent of the vote.
Mrs Clinton remains the overwhelming favourite to win the nomination and the Real Clear Politics poll average currently finds her ahead 59 per cent to Sanders’ 11.5 per cent.
But Mr Sanders’ strong showing in Wisconsin has attracted significant attention.
Even before the poll Peter Beinart noted in The Atlantic magazine that while Mr Sanders lacks name recognition, a political machine, money and even charisma, he has what has made insurgents formidable in the past – authenticity and consistency.
“I’m the only candidate who is prepared to take on billionaire class which controls our economy and increasingly controls the political life of this country,” Mr Sanders told George Stephanopoulos, host of This Week, one of the leading American political programs, on Sunday morning.
Asked if he wanted to make America more like Scandinavia – a suggestion that most American candidates would deny outright – Mr Sanders agreed enthusiastically.
“That’s right, that’s right,” he said in his distinctive amiable gutturals.
“And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong when you have more income and wealth equality?”
It has also been noted by several observers that according to the most recent Quinnipiac Poll, while there is daylight between Mrs Clinton and Mr Sanders, his 15 per cent puts him ahead of all the Republican candidates, including those that have attracted so much early coverage: Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio.
Writing for MSNBC, Alex Seitz-Wald, noted that Mr Sanders, “armed with low expectations and a stopped-clock message that has finally found its time” had attracted some of the best crowds of any campaign during stops in early states.
A truism of Democratic primary politics has held it that while Mrs Clinton has a hold on the Democratic Party’s brain, Senator Elizabeth Warren, another left-wing populist, had captured its heart.
But Ms Warren, famous for taking on Wall Street and the big banks as a consumer advocate and presidential adviser after the 2008 crash, has steadfastly declined to run for president.
This despite the efforts of the Run Warren Run political action committee, which finally ceased operations on Monday.
Mr Sanders can expect to be the beneficiary of the presidential support Ms Warren had attracted.
And though few believe he has a chance of winning, the impact of the party’s progressives has already been felt – many have noted that Mrs Clinton’s campaign is already running far to the left of the path it trod in 2008.
View the original content and more from this author here: http://ift.tt/1Qleabz
from democratic dojo http://ift.tt/1BWgbPD
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment