Note: VTDigger’s chief political reporter, Jasper Craven, has been following Bernie Sanders throughout Iowa since Saturday, where cold temperatures and hot crowds have greeted the Vermont senator. What follows are snapshots from his recent events, covering many counties and hundreds of miles.
What: Putting Families First Presidential Forum
Where: First Christian Church, Des Moines
When: Saturday at 3 p.m.
Highlights: The Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement held a presidential forum in a church packed by hundreds in the heart of the city. Sanders and fellow Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley spoke, but Hillary Clinton was elsewhere for the weekend, fundraising.
Midway through the event, protesters unfurled banners reading “Where is Hillary?” and repeated the line until much of the crowd joined in. The chants morphed into “Bernie! Bernie!” when Sanders went on stage.
He was questioned by civic leaders from throughout the Midwest on topics including immigration, payday loan practices, racial justice and Donald Trump.
Sanders appeared touched by a question from Kishia Saffold, who owns two day care centers in Alabama.
Saffold spoke about how her centers stay open late six days a week to accommodate single mothers who work unusual shifts. She asked about child care reforms, wanting more support to hire competitively and offer exceptional care.
“Thank you, so much, for the extraordinary work that you are doing,” Sanders said, giving a long embrace to Saffold.
He then spoke about the first meeting he held as Burlington’s mayor — one focused on children. It was the meeting where he met the woman he would marry.
“We talked about children, and out of that came what was, I think, one of the largest child care centers in the city of Burlington,” he said.
He spoke about a number of his city initiatives for children, including “after-school programs for our kids, a community center for kids to play their loud and terrible music, a Little League program, a kids’ newspaper, etc., etc.”
He said the most important years of a human’s life are from birth to age 4 but that child care providers are underpaid and overworked.
“People who work with 3-year-olds are doing more important work than college professors,” Sanders said to thunderous applause.
His wife, Jane, watched from a front row pew during her husband’s remarks. At one point she took out her phone, opened up the video messaging application Snapchat, and started filming.
The full forum can be viewed here:
What: East Side Des Moines rally
Where: The Paul R. Knapp Animal Learning Center at the Iowa State Fairgrounds
When: Saturday at 7 p.m.
Highlights: More than 1,500 people packed into the animal learning center for a Sanders rally on a night where temperatures dipped to 4 degrees.
Sanders wore a sweater and a jacket during the remarks but told the crowd he wasn’t cold. “I come from Vermont,” he said. “We think it’s warm outside.”
When VTDigger asked if he was wearing long johns against the cold, an aide dismissed the question as “too personal.”
But fashion provided the opening for Sanders’ rally.
“When we began this campaign, people said, ‘Bernie Sanders combs his hair very nicely, and he’s that kind of GQ dresser that we need in the White House,’” Sanders joked, his voice raspy after a long day of speaking. “‘But beyond that, we think he might be a fringe candidate.’”
He then spoke about why his ideas aren’t those of a fringe candidate. He said he represented the interests of the people, hitting all the usual points: free college tuition, breaking up big banks, Social Security support.
Someone in the crowd interrupted when he was discussing campaign finance reform, a move that has angered him in the past.
“Super people, not super PACs!” someone yelled.
“That’s exactly what we’ve included,” Sanders responded, seemingly happy for the suggestion. “We said, ‘Yeah, we will go to the super people of this country.’”
After the speech, Sanders left for his temporary home, a Hilton near the Des Moines airport. His voice would be better by the morning, aided by sleep, hot coffee and tea.
“We also often use a microphone, even for small events,” campaign spokesman Michael Briggs said.
What: Forum on veterans issues
Where: The Marshalltown Best Western
When: Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
Highlights: More than 600 people packed into a conference room to talk about veterans issues.
Outside the hotel, with the temperature around 9 degrees, a man selling Sanders paraphernalia was bundled up to the point where only his eyes were visible.
Marshalltown is the county seat of Marshall County, a conservative town surrounded by corn fields and farm equipment. The county caucused for Rick Santorum in 2012, and the local paper is called the Times-Republican.
Sanders told the crowd about his two years as chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, including work he did to overhaul the Department of Veterans Affairs. In the summer of 2014, revelations showed that 1,700 patients at a VA hospital in Phoenix had not been placed on waiting lists for care. At that hospital, more than 200 veterans waited an average of 115 days for their first appointment.
As chairman, Sanders brokered a $16.3 billion bill that included $10 billion to pay for private care and $5 billion for the VA to hire additional doctors and staff. An additional $1.3 billion was earmarked for the VA to lease space at other facilities around the country.
He spoke about improvements in VA health care but added that he wanted further enhancements such as dental services and therapeutic offerings, including yoga and acupuncture.
“I voted against the war in Iraq, OK,” Sanders said to applause. “It doesn’t matter your views on the war, you want to blame people, blame people who voted for the war.”
“But do not blame — and this is a lesson I think painfully our country has had to learn since Vietnam — do not blame the men and women who did their duty and fought in those wars,” he continued.
Sanders spoke and took questions for around an hour, before signaling that he had to get back in the car.
“We’ve got to move down the road,” he said.
What: Forum on climate change
Where: Boone High School
When: Sunday at 4 p.m.
Highlights: Sanders’ advisers say he uses the car rides between events to brush up on whatever topic he will be discussing next. The trip from Marshalltown to the climate forum featured views of towering wind turbines popping out of the desolate landscape.
In Boone, a crowd in the high school auditorium waited for his arrival. At one point, a Sanders look-alike walked in, with white hair thinning in the same places as the Vermont senator’s.
He also wore a sweater that could have come from Sanders’ own closet. Some in the crowd thought he was the actual senator, and cheers erupted at his arrival. When the jig was up, the crowd collectively laughed, and continued waiting.
At the climate change forum, Sanders spoke proudly, and at length, about Vermont environmental initiatives. He suggested farmers in Iowa capture methane gas from cows and convert it to electricity, as Green Mountain Power does with its Cow Power program.
“We have a lot of manure,” Sanders said. “You know about manure here in Iowa.”
He also praised the Washington Electric Co-op’s landfill methane plant in Coventry.
When talking about alternative energy, he announced that “my state has been aggressive on solar energy, less so on wind.”
He said Vermonters’ opposition to wind for aesthetic reasons was unwarranted.
“I’m not happy about it, and I have opposed it,” he said.
When asked his position on nuclear energy, Sanders spoke positively about the shutdown of Vermont Yankee.
“We are still storing nuclear waste on the banks of the Connecticut River,” Sanders added. “I don’t like that.”
Near the end of the forum, he shifted to Iowa environmental issues, condemning the proposed Bakken oil pipeline that would run through 18 counties.
“That means a lot to us,” an Iowan in the crowd told Sanders.
What: Rally in Ankeny
Where: Des Moines Area Community College campus
When: Sunday at 7 p.m.
Highlights: At the first event each day, Sanders’ voice is calm and his tone is subdued. At 1 p.m. in Marshalltown, he talked softly about how American democracy is turning into oligarchy.
But in Ankeny, in front of nearly 1,000 people, Sanders decried oligarchy so loudly the microphone’s sound became fuzzy. He criticized the political influence wielded by billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, telling Iowans that a caucus has already occurred for Republicans, called “the Sheldon Adelson caucus.”
His hands were animated, and his eyes were alive.
Sanders also mentioned recent polls that show him in a statistical dead heat with Hillary Clinton in Iowa and said her recent attacks on his gun voting record were a “mythology going around.”
Sanders said he supported a ban on assault weapons and advocated improvements to the background check system. He also said he was revisiting his position on whether gun manufacturers and sellers should be shielded from legal action.
After his gun policy defense, Sanders went on the offensive. He said Clinton should join him in supporting paid family sick leave as well as improvements to Social Security.
“It is time to lift the cap for the wealthiest people in this country so that we can expand Social Security benefits,” Sanders said.
He finished his speech by reiterating the momentum his campaign has captured. He predicted an Iowa win in a voice made hoarse by hours of speaking.
But he still was loud in his final minutes of the night, exclaiming that Iowans are poised to pull off “the biggest political upset in the modern history of the United States of America.”
Sanders then left, back to the Hilton. As volunteers put away chairs, the 1989 Neil Young hit “Rockin in the Free World” came over the speakers. The song is played at nearly every Sanders event.
“Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive,” Young sang. “Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.”
