Editor’s note: This article is by Matt Hongoltz-Hetling, of the Valley News http://www.vnews.com/news/ , in which it was first published Oct. 24, 2014.
Hanover — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tried to rally the Dartmouth College community Thursday to vote against Republicans in next month’s elections, telling the 60 people in attendance that turnout among young people was crucial for progressive causes.
The 2014 midterm elections, he said, “will determine whether the right-wing Republicans” will increase their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and win control of the U.S. Senate.
Sanders — who caucuses with Democrats and was introduced by a student as the “conscience of Congress” — also acknowledged that he is continuing to consider a potential 2016 run for president of the United States.
“I’m giving thought, giving thought,” Sanders responded to the question, which drew cheers from the audience of a student rally at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. “I haven’t made a decision.”
Sanders, who had just delivered a fiery speech railing against wealth inequality in America, said he wouldn’t “take on the billionaires” who are financing mainstream candidates lightly.
“I need to know there are millions and millions of people out there who will knock on doors,” he said.
After the event, which he ended by posing for individual photos with students and supporters, Sanders expanded on his criteria for a presidential bid.
“Running for the presidency is a huge, huge decision,” he said. “You have to think it through very carefully.”
Sanders, who came to Dartmouth as part of a slate of New Hampshire appearances this week including at Keene State College, Keene Town Hall and Plymouth State University, said he is trying to gauge the level of support that could be leveraged for a national Sanders campaign.
“Is there grassroots support for a very progressive campaign?” he asked. “Here, in a room full of supporters, the answer is yes, but we have to ascertain the situation. Most of my contributions are from small, individual contributors. I’ve been very fortunate in Vermont, but Vermont is a small state of 600,000 people. Can we raise enough money to run a credible campaign? If I do it, I will run a credible campaign, and I will run to win.”
Sanders said that he would rely partly, but not entirely, on support from college students and other young people.
Another important component, he said, would be working class families and ordinary people who are struggling to make ends meet.
Standing before a podium and using a microphone, Sanders delivered his speech with his trademark emphatic oratory style, full of repeated attacks on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, dramatic arm gestures, and a pitched voice that at times took on the fervent tones of a church preacher.
“The wealthiest people have never had it so good,” he said, noting that 1 percent of Americans control 37 percent of the country’s wealth while the poorest 60 percent of the population control just 1.7 percent of the wealth.
Sanders repeatedly targeted the Koch family, industrialists whose company, Koch Industries, reported 2013 revenues of $115 billion from a variety of industries, including oil, minerals and fertilizers.
Brothers Charles and David Koch have consistently supported conservative political causes.
Mass media coverage of politics, Sanders said, has become like that of sporting events, focused on trivialities such as which politician has said something foolish and who is leading who in the polls, a situation that he said has disenfranchised voters who don’t take public policy seriously.
“The billionaire class, they do know how important it is, and they will spend hundreds of millions of dollars” on the upcoming election cycle, he said.
“I suspect the Koch brothers will spend more by themselves than either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney spent during the entire 2008 presidential campaign,” he said.
Sanders told the audience that he was proud of the country’s progress over the last 30 years on many human rights issues, including race relations, mainstream acceptance of the disabled and gay communities, and increased representation of women among political leaders.
“But there is one area we are falling further and further behind, and that is the economic struggle,” he said.
Sanders’ populist message included calls for universal health care, redistribution of wealth, worker rights, addressing climate change, publicly funded political campaigns, a livable minimum wage, equal pay for women and free college tuition.
That last item is important to students like Mariah Williams, a 23-year-old master’s student from Pompano Beach, Fla., who joined Sanders on the panel and spoke briefly about women’s rights and the problems of crushing student debt.
“I look at my loan status and I sometimes feel burdened for doing what I was always told to do: Work hard and be all you can be,” she said.
Afterward, she said she appreciated Sanders’ candor.
“The other politicians are not willing to talk about this because they want to remain in power,” she said.
The 73-year-old Sanders, who was born during World War II, was an activist at the University of Chicago during the tumultuous civil rights protests of the 1960s, and began his political career with four failed bids for the U.S. Senate and the Vermont governorship in the 1970s.
Since then, he has become an unlikely institution, winning four terms as mayor of Burlington in the 1980s, and becoming, in 1990, the only independent candidate to win office in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has now served in Washington for 24 years.
It’s been a long time since Sanders’ formative years in the 1960s, a time of political activism that is currently being honored at Dartmouth as a historical era in an art installation called “Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties.”
But Williams said Sanders wouldn’t have any problems connecting to her and her youthful peers.
“Leadership is about vision,” she said, “and he has that.”
Sanders said he has seen the level of political activism on college campuses ebb and flow over the years, and said he sees a lot of current interest and concern among students about climate change.
He challenged the students on the panel to get out the vote to make issues like free tuition a part of the national discussion.
“I can guarantee you it will never happen when 20 percent of young people come out to vote,” he said.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211
