There's a reason Bernie Sanders talks about Pope Francis so much

[KoKo]

There's a reason Bernie Sanders talks about Pope Francis so much
Updated by Jonathan Allen on September 28, 2015, 9:30 a.m. ET [e-mail]

DES MOINES, IOWA — When Bernie Sanders stepped onto a makeshift soapbox at the Latino Heritage Festival here Saturday, he immediately compared himself to Pope Francis.

"What he is saying in so many words is there is something very wrong in this world, and I am saying in this country, when so few have so much and so many have so little," Sanders said.

It would be easy to interpret Sanders's emphasis on Francis, who just wrapped up a US tour, as the fleeting fascination of a politician trying to capitalize on a zeitgeist. It would also miss the point.

What Sanders is really doing is defter and more interesting — he's using the pope to put his unusual-for-America politics into a global context that makes them seem more mainstream to voters. Francis, who recently admonished world leaders to "seek a new economic model to help the poor and to shun policies that sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit," helps him do that.

Surely it isn't hurting. Few took Sanders, an avowed socialist, seriously when he announced his candidacy. America just doesn't do socialism. But an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday morning shows Sanders pulling within 7 percentage points of frontrunner Hillary Clinton, at 42 percent to 35 percent, when Vice President Joe Biden is included in the list of choices.

"God bless Pope Francis," Sanders said in Phoenix in July. "I think sometimes people think my economic views are radical. You should hear what this guy is saying."

"He's not pandering"

In January, Time magazine wrote that although Sanders is Jewish, "he’s also the likely 2016 presidential candidate whose political philosophy lines up most closely with the economic and social theories of Pope Francis."

Much More
Interesting Read at.........

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/28/9407493/bernie-sanders-pope-francis

[99th_Monkey]

1. The timing of the Pope's visit couldn't have been better for Bernie

The confluence of Bernie's campaign message on the airwaves, and the Pope's visit highlighting
some of the same issues -- most notably income inequality and climate change -- did not go
unnoticed ... I had to laugh when Naomi Klein called the Pope "Bernie Sanders in a white dress"
during a panel discussion about "why are people so excited about this Pope?"

[bulloney]

2. America just doesn't do socialism.

Under what rock does this author live?

Social Security
Medicare
Farm Programs
Food & Nutrition programs
VA Programs

And I'm just barely scratching the surface.

That remark comes across as a feeble attempt to resurrect Joe McCarthy.