~by Colleen O’Brien
“We need a political revolution in this country!” said Senator Bernie Sanders.
2016 Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, Democrat senator from Vermont, spoke for 45 minutes Saturday to a crowd of 600 in Ames about the moral, political and financial issues facing the country.
The 73-year-old politician has been garnering larger than expected crowds in Vermont and in Iowa since his declaration on May 26 in Burlington, VT, where he served as mayor eight terms and was elected to Congress eight times and twice to the U.S. Senate, in 2006 and in 2012. Sanders is an Independent who was supported by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and is running as a Democrat against Hillary Clinton, and now, former Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor, Martin O’Malley, who declared on Saturday.
Sanders’ stump speech was straight off his hand-out literature, and the Ames crowd was enthusiastic when he started off with “You’ve got the top 400 Americans owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.”
When he continued with “One-tenth of one percent owns as much as the bottom 90 percent,” the genial-looking supporters as well as the few stone-faced-looking cynics clapped for about a minute. Sanders expounded on the theme: “We need a political revolution in this country, a mass movement that will say the rich cannot own it all and a government that will work for all of us, not just a handful.
Sanders listed his 12 initiatives as “rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, addressing climate change, real tax reform, expanding social networks [Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition programs], health care as a right, not a privilege, regulating banks and Wall Street thoroughly, making college affordable for all, ending disastrous trade policies [NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.], pay equity for women, raising the minimum wage, growing the trade union movement, creating worker co-ops [workers owning a stake in a business].”
National news sources such as CNN are saying they are surprised at bigger than expected crowds seemingly avid for Sanders’ populist message.
