Sanders is the primary challenger Democrats need

[LiberalArkie]

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/4/sanders-is-the-primary-challenger-democrats-need.html?utm_content=manual&utm_campaign=ajam&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=SocialFlow

Hillary Clinton’s campaign knows voters want an economic populist candidate. During her recent trips to Iowa and New Hampshire (in a van nicknamed Scooby) her rhetoric has focused on how little millionaires and hedge fund managers pay in taxes and how “the deck is stacked” in favor of the wealthy.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine, who has covered his fair share of presidential politics, called it “fake populism,” and he’s right: Clinton is campaigning on the same focus-group-tested promises to repeal unjust tax loopholes that she and Barack Obama ran on in 2008. Those loopholes are still there and will likely remain if Clinton’s Wall Street donors get her into the White House.

There is one candidate, though, who has always championed populist causes and is a hit with supporters who are hip to the difference between a politician stumping for votes and a true advocate for working people. That candidate is Bernie Sanders.

The junior U.S. senator from Vermont, Sanders will officially announce his candidacy on Thursday. He draws large crowds for each visit to New Hampshire, the nation’s first and arguably the most influential of the presidential primaries. Last weekend in Hanover, New Hampshire, he was applauded for his promises to push for a $15 hourly minimum wage and introduce legislation that would make public colleges and universities tuition-free and for his bill to invest $1 trillion for infrastructure improvements across the U.S. — which he estimates would create 13 million jobs. Sanders has spoken of breaking up the biggest Wall Street banks, six of which control almost $10 trillion in assets and hold almost half the mortgages and credit card debt in the nation. Sanders’ policies make him a much stronger advocate for working people than Clinton. That said, even Sanders’ most ardent supporters don’t have much hope for his success. Darrell Hotchkiss, who hosted a house party for Sanders in Hanover, told CNN, “He isn’t going to get the nomination … We all know that.”


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[daleanime]

1. I have to wonder how long people will do us the favor....

of telling us that we can't do it.

[djean111]

2. Losing the nomination to a fake Populist. What a horrendous thought.

Who would, IMO, if she won the presidency, promptly discard every faked Populist statement she uttered as campaign blather.
Makes me want to work harder for Bernie.

Really pushing the Bernie can't win meme today.

[malthaussen]

3. I'd love a candidate who promised to tax the rich 95%

That would be some indication that the country is waking up from it's 40-year Supply Side doze. But I doubt even Bernie is willing to go that far.

About the only thing good in the '50s was that tax rate. Everything else has qualifications all over.

-- Mal

[seabeyond]

4. "an economic populist candidate." then OPs are started calling me out, because i state that

sanders candidacy is being run as " an economic populist candidate. "

liar.... i am told. you you you. you do not support sanders for daring to say he is being presented solely as " an economic populist candidate."

really people?