Chris Covert @ckcovert1

South Carolina Lawmaker Switches Sides to Endorse Bernie Sanders.

#SCforBernie Must read:

http://www.nytimes.com/

Lawyer for Walter Scott Family Switches Sides to Endorse Bernie Sanders

The lawyer for the family of Walter L. Scott, who was fatally shot by a police officer in South Carolina, is withdrawing his support from Hillary Clinton and endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Monday afternoon. The lawyer, State Representative Justin T. Bamberg of South Carolina, said he is switching sides because he believes Mrs. Clinton embodies establishment politics, while Mr. Sanders offers a bolder platform that will improve the lives of people in the South and across the country.

....

“Hillary Clinton is more a representation of the status quo when I think about politics or about what it means to be a Democrat,” said Mr. Bamberg, who initially endorsed Mrs. Clinton in December. “Bernie Sanders on the other hand is bold. He doesn’t think like everyone else. He is not afraid to call things as they are.”


Mr. Bamberg said he eventually decided to support Mr. Sanders after the two men spoke for 20 minutes last week on Martin Luther King’s Birthday about the shooting death of Mr. Scott. They also discussed Mr. Sanders’s plans for criminal justice reform, for creating new policies for police departments and about the struggles of working-class people. “What I got from him was not a presidential candidate talking to a state representative, or an old white man talking to a young black guy,” Mr. Bamberg said. “What I got from him was a man talking to a man about things that they are passionate about, and that was the tipping point for me.”

And so it begins...


http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/25/lawyer-for-walter-scott-family-switches-sides-to-endorse-bernie-sanders/

~snip~

Clinton's attacks against Sanders sounds strangely similar to her attacks against Obama in 2008. She is charging -- among many things -- that Sanders does not offer a realistic program, which is both condescending and wrong and an insult not only to Sanders, but to the large number of Democrats who are with Sanders. What a presidential candidate should do is offer a panoramic vision of how America can become better, mobilize support for that vision, seek an election victory with a mandate, and then negotiate with Congress from strength and make the compromises that must ultimately be made to win the most dramatic possible reforms. That is what important presidents such as Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy did. That is what Sanders is doing.


What a presidential candidate should not do is identify with the status quo and oppose dramatic change even before the first ballot is counted and attack the change candidates as naive or unrealistic. This is what Clinton is doing with her negative attacks against Sanders. Sanders proposes a healthcare system based on Medicare for all. Is Clinton criticizing all the Democrats and independents who agree with him? Would she have attacked Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson for proposing and enacting Medicare in the 1960s?


Sanders proposes a free public college education, paid for by a transaction tax on Wall Street speculators. Is Clinton criticizing young people and their moms and dads who would benefit greatly from a free public college education, or is she criticizing voters who favor a modest and fair speculation financial tax that would ask wealthy individuals and Wall Street firms to do more, to pay their fair share to help the next generation of students learn? Sanders proposes bringing back the Glass-Steagall Act and breaking up big banks. Is Clinton attacking as naive and unrealistic the huge number of voters who favor breaking up big banks? Would Clinton have criticized Franklin Roosevelt as being naive and unrealistic when he pushed the original Glass-Steagall Act to passage in the 1930s?


Sanders proposes an increase in Social Security benefits at a time when those benefits lag far behind the cost of living for seniors. Is the Clinton attacking the senior citizens who deserve better than the status quo, in which this year seniors receive no increase in Social Security benefits at all? Sanders is tapping a deeply held yearning in the electorate for big change and a nobler politics, and when Clinton attacks him for it, she is attacking the voters who demand this change and aligning herself with the lobbyists and special interests who oppose the very change and reforms that most voters want. So as Sanders soars, Clinton attacks him, which gives Sanders the upper hand as Iowa and New Hampshire prepare to vote.


cont'

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/65666

There has been a considerable dearth of polling in South Carolina over the past month (since Sanders began to make his move). Most of the polling in South Carolina was at the end of October and beginning of November when Clinton was riding high from the first debate and her testimony before Congress on Benghazi. During that time, many polls had Clinton up over 40 points on Sanders in South Carolina. A CBS News/YouGov poll released today (already diaried by slinkerwink) showed Clinton up 22 over Sanders (high MOE of about 9%). The same poll showed Clinton up 36 in December (a 14 point gain for Sanders) and Clinton up 47 points in November (a 25 point gain for Sanders). Even with the high MOE, this shows a Sanders surge starting sometime in early December.

It is clear why Clinton ally and super PAC leader David Brock basically called Sanders a racist last week. In the November poll, Clinton lead Sanders 82% to 14% among African American voters (a whopping 68 point lead for Clinton). In the December poll, she lead 78% to 19% (a 59 point lead). In the January poll, she leads 76% to 22% (a 54 point lead). This means that Sanders has gained 14 points among African American voters during that time. Sanders is slowly winning over some African American voters while Clinton is losing them. Among white voters, Sanders went from losing them 42%-57% in November to winning them 60%-38% now (a 37 point gain for Sanders).

The point is not to argue that Sanders will win South Carolina, but that there is a surge happening in his direction right now. He does seem to be winning over some African American voters. We will have to wait for more polls to see if this continues.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/01/24/1474574/-Bernie-Sanders-seems-to-be-surging-in-South-Carolina

PRESS RELEASE


The American People are Angry



JANUARY 23RD, 2016





MAQUOKETA, Iowa – “I am angry and millions of Americans are angry,” Bernie Sanders told a town meeting that brought out nearly 400 people to an inn here in eastern Iowa on cold Saturday night nine days before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses.

Sanders was responding to former President Bill Clinton, who a few days before had tried to shrug off Sanders’ campaign and the massive grassroots movement it has attracted by asserting that “what they need now is not anger but answers.”





Sanders recited a litany of reasons for Americans to be angry from childhood poverty to high unemployment to college students confronted by massive debt to a corrupt campaign system that props up a rigged economy.

He also has detailed a series of answers to those and other problems confronting the country.

Sanders has introduced a $1 trillion, five-year plan to rebuild America’s crumbling roads and bridges to put 13 million Americans to work in good-paying jobs.

He has a plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 from the current starvation wage of $7.25 an hour.

He will fight to sign the Paycheck Fairness Act into law and favors pay equity for women workers.

He has introduced a plan for a constitutional amendment to undo the 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which created the corrupt campaign finance system that props up our country’s rigged economy.

Sanders has a plan to make public colleges and universities tuition free and pay for it with a tax on Wall Street speculators.

He has a plan to expand and extend Social Security by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same share of their income into the system as everyone else.




https://berniesanders.com/press-release/the-american-people-are-angry/