When he arrived, he offered his thoughts on Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate who is been rebuked by Democrats for calling undocumented immigrants rapists and promising to build a giant wall across the southern border.
“That is old-fashioned racism,” Sanders, the Vermont Senator and Democratic socialist, said. “We will not tolerate it. It is not an American value to talk about rounding up millions of people and simply say that we are going to throw them out of the country. That is xenophobia.”
...
Jorge Carreno came with his girlfriend Brittany Johnson, a longtime supporter of Sanders who listed off a half dozen reasons why she will support the Democratic candidate.
Carreno, a first generation U.S. xitizen of Mexican heritage, watched his girlfriend list off the reasons and looked up when she finished.
“Before this, I thought I was a Republican. But I don’t know anymore. I like Bernie because he speaks his mind. He says he’s going to do a lot of great things. But it’s different when you get into office.”
x YouTube Video
Bernie Campaigns In Las Vegas Bernie Sanders took his Democratic presidential campaign to the racially diverse outskirts of Las Vegas on Sunday, telling a large crowd gathered at a soccer stadium about the struggles of his immigrant father and pledging to dismantle what he termed "the excessively wasteful $18-million deportation regime."
In a speech that appeared tailored to Latino residents on the city’s northeast side, Sanders vowed to stop large-scale deportations and close privately owned immigrant detention centers. He was introduced by two young Latino activists — one of whom told the story of her father’s deportation — as well as a 10-piece mariachi band.
On Monday, Sanders will speak at a national gathering of immigration activists.
Sanders' explicit appeals to Nevada’s growing Latino electorate are not accidental.
The senator from Vermont would need to capture large numbers of Latino and African American votes to best Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton in Nevada’s Feb. 20 caucus.
But he faces major hurdles.
The Sanders campaign, which prides itself on its small donations, opened its first field office in Nevada just last month.
x
Bernie Sanders gave a speech tonight to another massive crowd in Las Vegas, Nevada! #Bernie2016#feelthebernpic.twitter.com/pE5ZPTIIY2
— ToastyPoptart (@LollipopCrumbs) November 9, 2015x YouTube Video
Sanders Still Will Not Divert From The Issues Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called out the media on Sunday for scrutinizing GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson's personal story, thereby diverting attention away from his policy positions.
“I think it might be a better idea, I know it's a crazy idea, but maybe we focus on the issues impacting the American people and what candidates are saying, rather than just spending so much time exploring their lives of 30 or 40 years ago,” Sanders, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I think the reason that so many people are turned off to the political process has a lot to do with the fact that we're not talking about the real issues impacting real people.”
Instead, consistent with his campaign mantra, Sanders urged voters and the media to focus on policy.
The senator specifically cited some of Carson’s hard-line conservative positions on climate change and health care as issues that have been overshadowed by the numerous reports on about his personal story.
“When you look at Dr. Carson, to the best of my knowledge, this man does not believe that climate change is caused by human activity. This man wants to abolish Medicare, impacting tens of millions of seniors, and this man wants to give huge tax breaks to the rich,” Sanders said.
x
Crowds chanting "Bernie, Bernie" as they wait to hear @BernieSanders speak at rally in North Las Vegas @News3LVpic.twitter.com/Ldx8qn7EWH
— Nathan O'Neal (@NateNews3LV) November 9, 2015x YouTube Video
An Editorial by Jon Ellingson Congratulations to Hillary Clinton! She conducted herself admirably in the Democratic debate and before the Benghazi Committee. She deserves the positive press that she has received after these two events as she looked very Presidential indeed.
With her stellar performances, some are suggesting that it is time to rally around her and for Bernie Sanders and his supporters to give up his campaign and support Clinton. With due respect to Secretary Clinton, I suggest that this call is premature.
Several elements of the Clinton resume continue to be troublesome and do not compare favorably the Sanders record.
The first is consistency. A few examples will illustrate the point. Clinton backed going to war in Iraq and Sanders did not. Clinton now acknowledges the error of her vote. Clinton supported easing banking regulations that could have prevented the great recession of 2008. Sanders did not. Now she wants tougher banking regulations. Finally, Clinton came late to the recognition that our gay and lesbian citizens are entitled to marry as a matter of fundamental right. By contrast, Sanders voted against the Defense of Marriage Act.
Consistency should not be an absolute litmus test for a candidate. But it is one important factor to be considered when judging whether or not a candidate is truly committed to the programs and values she/he now advocates. There really can be no doubt about Sanders’ commitment. He has been working for the same values throughout his 40-year career with little deviation.
...
The longer the Sanders campaign lasts, the less likely it is that Clinton will abandon the issues that help her win the nomination and election. But the only way to be sure that these important policies are advocated from the White House is to nominate and elect Bernie Sanders.
x
I just met Bernie Sanders! Very cool! Welcome to Las Vegas! pic.twitter.com/qLFCTuR90b
— Andreana Franco (@Chicanita67) November 9, 2015x YouTube Video
Corporate Dems Are Upset “The battle for the soul of the Democratic party is coming to an end,” claims Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a champion of Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren.
“It’s not just Sanders and O’Malley [who are pushing Clinton]; there is an entire Warren wing of American politics that includes certain politicians, think tanks and advocacy groups [and] has fundamentally shifted the national debate in an economic populist direction.”
..
Yet signs are growing of a backlash within what remains of the party’s more business-friendly and economically conservative New Democrat wing.
At Columbia University in New York this weekend, the Progressive Policy Institute, which helped Bill Clinton and Tony Blair pioneer so-called third way politics in the 1990s, held a closed-door strategy session for congressional staffers that was designed to find ways of promoting growth.
“There is no question that the prevailing temper of the Democratic party is populist: strongly sceptical of what we like to call capitalism and angry about the perceived power of the monied elite in politics,” said PPI president and founder Will Marshall.
“But inequality is not the biggest problem we face: it is symptomatic of the biggest problem we face, which is slow growth.”
x YouTube Video
Supporters Gather In Bridgeport Cynthia Lucas is so excited about Bernie Sanders’ presidential run, she registered as a Democrat for the first time in years so she can vote in next year’s party primary.
“I have not voted in the primary in a long time,” said Lucas, a Trumbull resident who often votes for Democrats. “I like Bernie because I hear exactly what’s in my head,” she said, referring to his left-leaning politics.
Lucas was one of a handful of people who attended a social mixer early Sunday evening at Two Boots downtown restaurant designed to bring Sanders supporters together for pizza, drinks and political talk. The meet and greet was sponsored by the Bernie Sanders Connecticut Team, a grassroots organization dedicated to bringing voters to his cause. The group, divided by the state’s congressional districts, has been hosting similar events across Connecticut, including workshops that offer tips on how to campaign for a candidate.
The point, said organizer Matt Matis, is to network and search for volunteers willing to work on the upcoming campaign.
“You never know what skill sets someone might have,” said Matis, who lives in Stratford.
x
Here's something: @Wandfc@jonfitchdotnet discussing the Ali Act for MMA with @BernieSanderspic.twitter.com/9XEyb8FODQ
— John S. Nash (@heynottheface) November 9, 2015x
Look at this amazing Texas sized volunteer group in Houston for @BernieSanders Campaign #FeeltheBern#HTXBernpic.twitter.com/BRxkXgrLuP
— Viva Bernie (@vivabernie) November 8, 2015Sanders Speaks To Jim Axelrod The striking thing about Bernie Sanders is not that he's a man whose time has come. It's that he's been waiting so long for his time to get here.
He's even learned to take selfies. "Oh, God!" he laughed. "I can't walk down the street without selfies, yes!"
Sanders on the campaign trail in 2015 sounds, word for word, verbatim what he was talking about in nearly 30 years ago. "We need to radically change the priorities of this nation," he told "60 Minutes" back in 1988. "We have the wealth to provide a decent standard of living for all our people."
"More and more Americans are catching on to what I have been talking about for decades," he said.
Axelrod asked, "Do you feel a little bit of satisfaction? Like, 'Suddenly you people are listening?' Were you waiting for America to catch up with you?"
"Well, I'm glad that it's happening," he laughed.
x
RT Bernie Sanders Wins WIU's Historically Accurate Mock Election - #feelthebern#Bernie2016https://t.co/gZYggFPMTtpic.twitter.com/pWZdOxq3nR
— The Progressive Mind (@Libertea2012) November 9, 2015x
Organizing 4 @BernieSanders 2day in #dallas#FeelTheBern#dallasbern#Bernie2016pic.twitter.com/peyrYfLC7u
— oakcliff4bernie (@oakcliff4bernie) November 8, 2015Bernie Backed Obama Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders responded to primary challenger Martin O'Malley, calling the former Maryland governor's claim that he worked against President Obama's reelection "categorically false."
Sanders rejected O'Malley's claims on ABC's "This Week," saying Obama campaigned for him in Vermont in 2006 and that he worked for the president in 2008 and 2012. O'Malley had said Friday that in 2011, Sanders was trying to find someone to run against the president in a primary.
"I worked very hard to see Barack Obama elected," Sanders said. "I think under incredible Republican obstructionism, Obama and Joe Biden have moved this country forward in a way that leaves us a hell of a lot better than we were when [former President George W.] Bush left office."
O'Malley's accusations stem from Sanders saying at least once in 2011, during a radio interview, that he was in favor of robust primaries.
Sanders told Stephanopoulos, “Somebody asked me years ago, do you think there should be a primary opponent to Barack Obama? And I don't know exactly the words that I -- I'm not sure -- what's wrong with a primary situation?”
x
Remember the feeling of being young and believing you can change the world? You can get it back. Vote for #Bernie#FeelTheBern#BeforeWeDie
— Susan Lapakko (@SusanLapakko) November 8, 2015x
A farmer in SW Iowa did this in his field to show his support for @BernieSanders in the #iacaucus#FeelTheBernpic.twitter.com/tHeCko91Ie
— Iowa for Bernie (@Iowa4Bernie) November 9, 2015Dont Underestimate Bernies Brand Like many new and different brands, Bernie Sanders has a message that resonates with supporters. But just as big brand managers make the mistake of dismissing new competition, the media has discounted Sanders’s chances of nomination. Indoctrinated by years of “business as usual” both groups assume that history will repeat itself; they assume that the frontrunner has the upper hand; they assume that the parameters of success are fixed and what has worked in the past will work in the future. The real challenge when forecasting future success—for brands or politicians—is to test existing assumptions, not simply to accept them at face value.
Detractors of Sanders’s campaign often write off his early popularity by contending that his supporters are little more than a grumbling and ultimately powerless economic minority. This group, according to critics, may make a lot of noise in the beginning, but it has neither the staying power nor the voter turnout to truly impact an election. But Sanders’s early success is far more indicative of a serious disillusionment with the American Dream and a discredited political mainstream. The cultural and economic context does not merely allow for Sanders’s popularity; rather; it gives grounds to his resonance.
Sanders’s message of economic and social fairness is resonating with Americans in exactly the same way that many successful brands do—by addressing societal tensions. Sanders, for example, tapped into a public that felt trapped after the Great Recession. Similarly, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty succeeded by addressing the idealized portrayal of female beauty in popular culture that many women found unobtainable and demeaning. IBM has found success with its promise of making the world a Smarter Planet through technology, and Chipotle is appealing to those who may not agree with the practices of big agriculture.
On a recent NPR segment, David Brooks of The New York Times questioned why Sanders did not challenge Hillary Clinton during the Democratic debate if he truly wanted to be president, suggesting that he had raised the white flag of surrender by not using Clinton’s email controversy against her. His statement reflects a mindset indoctrinated by decades of increasingly aggressive political debate. But Americans are looking for a president who has a clear sense of purpose—an ideology, if you will—rather than one who merely indulges in character assassination to win power. Sanders’s message and tone are so different that they simply do not compute for pundits—but they resonate with voters.
x
I will establish immigration policies that keep families together, not divide them. #BernieInVegaspic.twitter.com/KfjiyXeeTA
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 9, 2015