Bernie Sanders is an unlikely but real threat to Hillary Clinton!
ROCHESTER, New Hampshire (PNN) - June 28, 2015 - At the first glimpse of the rumpled 73-year-old senator from Vermont, the standing-room-only crowd at a historic inn here Sunday morning erupted - leaping up, waving signs and breaking into chants of “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!”
The scene has become a familiar one as Bernie Sanders makes a most unexpected surge in his bid for the Democrat presidential nomination.
Sanders - a self-described democratic socialist - has seen his crowds swell and is gaining ground in the polls on the formidable Democrat front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton. In New Hampshire, where Sanders was on yet another weekend swing, one survey last week showed him within 8 percentage points of Clinton.
Sanders’ emerging strength has exposed continued misgivings among the Party’s progressive base about Clinton, whose team is treading carefully in its public statements. Supporters have acknowledged privately the potential for Sanders to damage her - perhaps winning an early state or two - even if he can’t win the nomination.
“He’s connecting in a way that Hillary Clinton is not,” said Burt Cohen, a former New Hampshire state senator and Sanders supporter who attended Sunday morning’s event, where a nasty rain didn’t seem to deter many people from coming. “He’s talking about things people want to hear. People are used to candidates who are calculated, produced and measured, and they see through that. Bernie’s different.”
During his hour-long stump speech here, Sanders railed against the “billionaire class” and pledged to make large corporations pay their fair share of taxes if he becomes president. But much of his message focused on improving the lot of the lower and middle classes - by providing free college; guaranteeing workers vacation time, sick leave and family leave; and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
“I don’t believe it is a terribly radical idea to say that someone who works 40 hours a week should not be living in poverty,” Sanders told a crowd of about 300 people.
For all the excitement surrounding his grass-roots effort, Sanders still faces significant skepticism from Party elites - and even from some of his supporters - about whether he can advance beyond being a summer sensation. Some suggest he could fade as voters think more seriously about whom they want as their nominee, and even Sanders acknowledges that money could become an issue once the contest moves to bigger states, where television advertising is more essential.
