by Leonora Cravotta
Clash Daily Contributor
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders recently packed the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Madison Wisconsin with close to 10,000 people establishing Sanders’ Madison campaign rally as the most well attended 2016 presidential candidate event of the season. Given that Madison is the site of the University of Wisconsin, there were plenty of millennials in the audience to hear Sanders’ battle cry for “a revolution”. By contrast, the attendance level for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s much publicized Roosevelt Island event’s was well below expectations resulting in a virtually unused “overflow” area. Furthermore, Clinton’s audience was reportedly primarily “older and whiter.”
The Independent Senator from Vermont who is seeking to run on the Democratic ticket has made some serious traction in the polls over the last few weeks. Sanders has also cut seriously into Clinton’s lead in the Iowa caucus, coming in at 33% versus Hillary’s 52% in a Quinnipiac University poll. This represents a huge leapfrog for Sanders who was polling at 15% as recently as May. Sanders also packed a crowd of 2,000 during his recent rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
The rise of Bernie Sanders clearly shows that Hillary’s star is starting to fade and that even the Democrats are getting a little disenchanted with her in the wake of Benghazi, email gate and the Clinton Foundation scandals. It also shows that Sanders is starting to resonate with different segments of the voter base including millennials and minority voters.
However, the emergence of Sanders as the alternative to Hillary reveals something scary, after over six years of Barack Obama’s failed legacy, the Democrats are seeking a President who is even more left than Obama. While Obama and Hillary Clinton have been preaching shared prosperity and Robin Hood Politics, Bernie Sanders is going even further with his plans to move our top margin tax rate from 39.2%, to 90%. In fact in a recent interview with CNBC; s John Harwood he stated “What I think is obscene (is) when you have the top one-tenth of one percent owning almost as much as the bottom 90.” Sanders went on to say “If you have seen a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top tenth of one percent, you’ve got to transfer that back.” Transfer it back? This is America, a country built on capitalism, hard work and entrepreneurship. Why should anyone have to transfer their wealth?
Bernie Sanders has “revolutionary roots.” Back in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, he described himself as a “revolutionary” when he was authoring articles for The Vermont Freeman with titles such as “The Revolution is Life versus Death” or “Reflections on a Dying Society” where he basically was saying that the United States was on the highway to hell. Hardly the musings of a patriot. And while one could say that Bernie Sanders’ writings from the 1960’s should stay in the 1960’s, his current campaign platform with its focus on income inequality, breakdown of the banks etc. indicates that like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, he has a socialist vision for America.
The fact that the Democrats have no better candidates to offer than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders shows the party is in desperate need of leadership. Our country has suffered under the weak leadership of Barack Obama who blurred the lines between the executive, legislative and judicial branches with his unprecedented use of executive orders and memorandums. Not to mention his wealth redistribution programs including Obamacare, Obama College, Obama phones, and Obama housing.
Bernie Sanders says that, “The people are sick and tired of establishment politics, establishment economics. They want real change”. If Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton represent the establishment, we are in serious trouble. We need to stop this groundswell to overturn our country’s foundation. We need a leader who will rebuild America’s greatness. We need a leader who believes in our potential, not one who wants to gut our economy and undermine our constitutional principles.
Image: http://rightardia.blogspot.com/2011/05/win-bernie-sanders-blames-oil-price.html
Leonora Cravotta is the lead writer/editor for BugleCall.org; and the Co-Host for the Scott Adams Show, a political radio talk show. Her professional background includes over fifteen years in corporate and nonprofit marketing. She holds a B.A. in English and French from Denison University, an M.A. in English from University of Kentucky and an M.B.A. from Fordham University. The Scott Adams show is available on Buglecall.org, Red State Talk Radio, iTunes, Tune-In, Spreaker, Stitcher and Soundcloud.
