A diverse crowd of several thousand showed up to hear Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders deliver a rousing, hour-and-a-half speech at Caras Park in Missoula on Wednesday.
A huge line formed hours ahead of the rally, with people backed up all the way down the Riverfront Trail and across the Orange Street Bridge. When the U.S. senator from Vermont finally took the stage at about 1 p.m., the sign-waving, flag-carrying crowd erupted into chants of "Bern, baby, Bern!"
With his signature hand gestures and forceful speaking style, Sanders delivered a wide-ranging treatise on everything from his proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour in every state to an assertion that the U.S. will no longer imprison more people than any other country on Earth if he is elected.
Before the rally, Sanders told the Missoulian how he would transition Montana away from a fossil fuel-dependent energy economy to a clean-energy economy without killing jobs.
"The debate is over. Climate change is real, and it is caused by human activity," Sanders said, adding that he has spoken with scientists all over the world. "It is already causing devastating problems in our country and around the world.”
Sanders, a member of the Senate committee on the environment, said that humans have a moral responsibility as custodians of this planet to leave it healthy and habitable for future generations.
