Bernie Sanders Throws a Nationwide House Party for Over 100,000 Would-Be Foot Soldiers [View all]

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Indeed, on what the campaign is calling one of the most important days of its upstart movement, Mr. Sanders came to this small apartment in southwest Washington, looked into a camera and spoke live to what his campaign said was more than 100,000 supporters nationwide.

“Enough is enough,” Mr. Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate from Vermont, told his followers, listing grievance after grievance, from income inequality to the Citizens United ruling to the minimum wage to Sandra Bland. Then he called on them to act.

The first step? A text message.

The national organizing day, which featured more than 3,500 events and house parties across the country, centered around a technological infrastructure that uses text-messaging sign-ups and a deep database of volunteers. Attendees at the house parties were asked to text a number to opt in and show interest.

A few months ago, Mr. Sanders never thought he would be speaking to this many people, telling First Draft that he would have thought that maybe 1,000 would turn out. But as he continues to draw large crowds, crowds that “continue to surprise me to this day,” the campaign realized that now was the time to try and turn the interest into working volunteers.

So they borrowed a method from the labor movement and tried to structure the volunteer movement into a sort of campaign staff, from door knockers and phone bank callers to event organizers and even some computer programmers. “It’s not an accident Larry Cohen is here,” Mr. Sanders said, referring to the former president of the Communications Workers of America, whose remarks closed the broadcast.

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NYTimes First Draft