Sanders: Obama lost touch with grass-roots movement

[BeyondGeography]

151. What grass roots movement is that?

One of them, all of them? Who are them?

There are the teabaggers, who are often motivated by hatred, fear and anger. Did Barack Obama neglect them, too?

Obama spent much of his life organizing and trying to organize people. He knew what he was up against in terms of sustaining grass roots enthusiasm for his presidency and his policies. He drew his own conclusions on what he needed to do in order to win the White House twice and how he needed to govern. He won 11 of 12 battleground states by slim margins in 2012 because he turned out his voters in numbers that shocked his opponent. The time, money and human effort involved just to get people to vote is enormous. It is also unsustainable when you move to governing and mobilizing people around specific policies. Americans have to do more of their own political lifting if they are going to be heard; Presidents can't and won't do it for them. Could Obama have done more? Absolutely. But so could the people he was always trying to help. They could have voted in midterms for starters.

There is one bit of truth at the end of the article. Bernie says that in order to get elected President, "you need serious money." Of course, he wouldn't take "big money" donations, if he runs. Which means he will never be President. Not in this environment.