Georgia 2018: Abrams nabs Bernie Sanders' endorsement
May 17, 2018
Democrat Stacey Abrams earned the support Thursday of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a former presidential candidate who is a hero to many of the party’s progressives. Sanders called Abrams, a former state House minority leader, the “only candidate for governor of Georgia who has real solutions that will help the lives of working people in Georgia.”
Abrams has the support of the lion’s share of national groups and other potential 2020 presidential candidates, including U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.
In his endorsement, Sanders touted Abrams’ proposals to expand the pre-kindergarten program, raise the minimum wage, introduce automatic voter registration and eliminate cash bail.
“This is an agenda the working people of Georgia can stand proudly behind,” said Sanders.
https://politics.myajc.com/blog/politics/georgia-2018-abrams-nabs-bernie-sanders-endorsement/rY6s0vArlOGJwDx2gaWtcK/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Excerpt:
A lot’s riding on this election: The next governor will play a major role in redrawing Georgia’s voting districts. They will help determine how residents access education, healthcare, jobs, and transit. And Deal’s successor will oversee the shifting landscape of Georgia’s business environment, amid current unrest over guns, religious liberty, and tax incentives.
Stacey Abrams
Should she claim the win, Abrams, a Yale-educated lawyer and House minority leader until she resigned to run for higher office, would be the nation’s first black female governor. With her New Georgia Project organization, the Atlanta resident has made it her mission to urge unregistered people—predominantly minorities—to sign up and vote.
“We must educate bold and ambitious children; foster a fairer, more diverse economy; and have effective and engaged leaders who are committed to serving everyone, including those who don’t feel seen or heard,” she says in an email, adding that Georgia’s next governor must be “a firewall against the Trump administration’s dangerous agenda.” She’s earned backing from the liberal likes of U.S. Representatives John Lewis, David Scott, and Hank Johnson.
Abrams aims to walk back recently passed pro-gun legislation, such as “campus carry,” and expand Medicaid.
http://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/meet-candidates-running-georgia-governor-2018/
in an overwhelmingly conservative-legislature and was happy to vote for her. Abrams is of course black, and a third of Georgians are black but have not been voting their power. Hopefully Abrams' candidacy will change that, for good.
Whether Abrams really thinks Sanders' endorsement will help more than hurt or is just addressing a new challenge boldly, let's hope that she carries it off. Of the two Stacys ( 
), Abrams has endorsements from big names mostly from outside the state, so Sanders joins that group. Evans' endorsements are far more modest but strongly local, and she's running on that as a virtue.
Very interestingly, regarding Sanders, and the condescending spin that Abrams "earned" and "nabbed" this rather alarming endorsement, Abrams is a strong liberal but no rigid, righteous, unrealistic ideologue by any means. In 2016 and 2017 Sanders wouldn't even have considered endorsing her. Her usual SOP has of necessity been endless working with conservatives, trying to nudge legislative boulder trajectories as she can.
This year Sanders has obviously decided he wants to be able to claim he's getting people elected, and of course to mend his relations with POC. So he is endorsing some of our good Democrats in addition to his regular. As long it helps them win, that should be a promising development. True, it's not working in the primaries very well so far, but the GE's coming fast.
And if this is accompanied by stopping badmouthing of Democrats in national media (just until after November 6, please!), that'll be a setback for the Republicans and Russians. Fingers crossed.
How could I make such a faux pas 