Bernie Sanders made a bold move by launching his 2015 democratic presidential campaign by labeling himself a "democratic socialist". This is especially true considering that people have been negatively using the word "socialist" to describe our current president, Barack Obama. Starting a campaign in the same shoes as Barack Obama, a not very well known "unelectable" senator with odd characteristics vs. an established career politician(actually same one; Hillary Clinton), he seems to have purposefully put up hurdles to jump over. This bold move, however, is not the first time Bernie Sanders believed he could overcome such obstacles. In fact, he has been winning out of nowhere elections for the past thirty years.
Though not a politician, Bernie started forming civil rights activist groups in the 1960's. There have been comments that Bernie's affiliation with civil rights in the '60s and marching to see Martin Luther King speak are irrelevant because he was white. Some blogs actually say that it is irrelevant because that's what you were supposed to do as a liberal. His activism towards a goal should not be dismissed because of his race, though. His interest in helping minorities at an early age shows commitment to moral character. This is in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton who was president of the Young Republicans Club at her university and was campaigning for Barry Goldwater in 1964 who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Though Hillary shortly after changed her views on civil rights and left the republican party, this early flip flop is a first of many for the current democratic candidate.
On voting, Bernie Sanders is highly consistent on his tough decisions. He highlighted in a speech at the Iowa Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson Dinner a large number of times in his career that he made the moral call that turned out to be the right one, while his challengers failed. Some of these key and unwavered decisions on the Gulf War, The Iraq War, NAFTA, DoMA, the wall street crash and bailout, citizens united, the TPP, the keystone pipeline, the patriot act, the NSA, and the privacy of our personal information as citizens of The United States of America. I do not believe that it is possible to criticize somebody's record for voting so consistently with his beliefs for a career of politics.
A large part of Bernie's successes so far have been due to his grassroots campaign strategies and youth engagement. His opposition to the use of super-PACs that allow companies to give unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns puts him at a large disadvantage, though his fundraising is almost on par with his competition in the third quarter gaining 26.2 million vs. Hillary's 29.9 million. This is due to his small dollar donors that average at about thirty dollars per donation. His campaign has excited enough people to feel the bern that he has already hit a record of a million donations well before Barack Obama had in 2008, which was the previous record.
A large part of his message is that he can't win the campaign alone, but has excited the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of volunteers of all demographics to spread the word of his campaign. Another campaign objective is to get young people involved and voter turnout to be at a record high. As a supporter of the "end youth apathy movement", I am very excited to see a candidate not only running a successful campaign, but also running many underlying campaigns underneath. Even if Bernie Sanders does not win the campaign to be the next President of the United States, he has already won by spreading his message of ending super-PACs, engaging youth in political involvement, and spreading awareness of his key issues. In my thesis, I will go further into detail of how Bernie Sanders has already won the election by pushing Hillary left on progressive issues in the case that she does win. I will, however, focus on the fact that Bernie Sanders will be the next President of the United States by running the most morally sound and "on the issues" campaigns that we've seen in a long time.
This is a good choice for you; though I would caution you to remain as objective as possible as an analyst. That's not to say you aren't supposed to support Senator Sanders if you analyze his campaign, but rather that you must be even more careful to scrutinize strategies and tactics that are geared exactly toward folks like you.
ReplyDeleteYou mention a number of important aspects of the campaign, including the style of fundraising and the candidate's sincerity and consistency. Whether or not these things are honorable or not is less relevant to this paper than how effective they are. Senator Sanders has clearly touched upon a vein of deep frustration with politics as usual and especially politics tilted toward the rich. While this campaign appears to be representing a stronger-than-expected challenge to Secretary Clinton's bid, it also appears to appeal to a particular group. Outside of his constituency, the story might be different. On realclearpolitics.com, for instance, Sanders beats Trump in most national polls, but does not beat Bush.
As we've discussed, there is much to admire about Senator Sanders - not the least of which is his personal integrity and consistency as a public official. It is important that the value of such integrity be determined. If Mr. Sanders' personal appeal translates into voter support, then perhaps we will finally have real evidence that an honest politician stands a chance in a cynical public arena.
Looking forward to your analysis! Let me know how I can help!