Sanders rocks

Sanders rocks Denver crowd, calls for ‘political revolution’

By Vic Vela

Neil Young's music was blasting inside the University of Denver on Saturday night — but he wasn't the rock star the frenzied crowd had come to hear.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders electrified supporters with a fiery, populist message that resonated with the thousands that packed DU's Hamilton Gymnasium.

Not long after stepping up to the podium to Young's “Rockin' in the Free World” — and to chants of “Bernie, Bernie!” — the Vermont senator took aim at a national economic system that he feels benefits the rich and leaves the poor and middle-class behind.

“There is something profoundly wrong when the top tenth of one percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent,” Sanders said. “What we are doing tonight is, we are sending a message to the billionaire class, and that is: You can't have it all.”

Income inequality. Climate change. Big money in politics. Rising college costs. Health care.

These were just a handful of the issues that Sanders addressed during a speech where he urged supporters to “create the political revolution that this country needs.”

Sanders is one of only two declared rivals to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, along with former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

“Let me begin by telling you what no other candidate for president is going to tell you,” Sanders said. “And that is that this campaign is not about me, it's not about Hillary Clinton, it's not about Jeb Bush. It's not about any other candidate. This campaign is about you, your kids and your parents.”

“It is about creating a political movement of millions of people who stand up and loudly and proudly proclaim that this nation and our government belongs to all of us and not just a handful of billionaires.”

The Denver visit was Sanders' first to Colorado since he announced his presidential run in April. Organizers estimated the overflow crowd at between 4,800 and 5,000 — the largest since his campaign kicked off.

It was no small turnout for a candidate who urged his supporters to think big.

“We have been thinking small for too many years,” he said. “We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Now is the time to think big and to understand all that we can accomplish for all of our people.”

Big ideas

Sanders is certainly not proposing small ideas, whether or not one agrees with them. Among them is a plan called the College For All Act, which would provide free tuition for any student who attends a public college or university.

“It is not a radical idea,” he told the audience at DU, which is a private university. “It is the most common-sense idea we can think of.”

Sanders said every person in the country deserves an opportunity to attend college, “regardless of the income of their family.”

“What kind of insanity is it that we say to these people, 'We don't want you to become scientists or engineers or doctors or nurses because you just don't have the money’?”

The tuition plan would cost $70 billion per year. To pay for it, Sanders proposes a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Wall Street, big corporations and banks make up Sanders' favorite targets — and he appears to take great pride in being their enemy.

“I suppose that means I won't get too much money for my campaign, but we will survive without them,” he said to cheers.

Sanders called income inequality “the great moral issue of our time.” He said household wages are lower than they were 16 years ago and that youth unemployment, especially among minorities, is staggeringly high.

The federal minimum wage, he said, is more like a “starvation wage,” and he blasted the income disparity between men and women.

While the poor and middle-class struggle to make a living, those with big bucks can spend them freely in a political campaign system that is destroying democracy, he said.

Sanders received a huge reaction when he took aim at the Supreme Court's controversial 2010 decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case. The court ruled that political spending is protected under the First Amendment, a decision Sanders said has paved the way for the wealthy “to own the United States government.”

Sanders made a promise to supporters about campaign finance reform.

“I have so far made one promise in this campaign ... and that is, I will have a litmus test for my nominees for the Supreme Court,” he said. “And that litmus test is, that anyone I nominate, will make it clear to this country that they will re-hear Citizens United and vote to overturn it.”

Sanders backs universal health care and proposes allowing everyone, regardless of age, to have access to a “Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care program.”

Sanders also blasted Republican-led budget efforts to upend what he termed the “modest” insurance coverage gains under Obamacare.

“You tell me if it is a good idea that millions of men women and children are thrown off of health insurance,” he said, drawing an instant chorus of “no”s from the audience.

But Sanders is no supporter of another major Obama policy initiative, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement Sanders called “disastrous.”

Sanders also said the country needs to get serious about climate change. The senator lauded recent calls on the part of Pope Francis — the Pope has called climate change a global problem particularly affecting the poor — to combat the problem.

“God bless Pope Francis,” Sanders said.

Sanders said it's time for conservatives to stop denying the overwhelming science on climate change.

“The debate is over, maybe with the exception of Fox (News) television,” he said.

Supporters revved up

Sanders' message resonated with supporters who say they are disillusioned with the current political and economic system.

They included Ed Waddell, who made the drive from Cheyenne to see Sanders speak.

“It's only 100 miles to see Bernie?” he quipped. “I'd drive 200.”

Waddell said he is drawn to the senator's populist message.

“All the growth in the country goes the top,” he said. “The people in the middle and lower income brackets aren't getting it. People have lost their homes and are working for less than ever.”

Sanders may be 73, but his message resonates with 22-year-old Thomas Tarlar, who just graduated from DU with a degree in economics and mathematics.

“I feel like he understands what the millennials want and need,” Tarlar said. “We see where the world is going. We see global warming and we see a lot of issues. We see poverty in America and, quite frankly, it's rather depressing.”

While the mention of Sanders's name brought smiles to the faces of his supporters, the same couldn't be said of Hillary Clinton's.

“Hillary is a nice lady,” said 21-year-old Allie Coulter, a DU economics major. “I don't hate Hillary Clinton. I respect her as a human being, but I don't see her as an electable candidate.”

Brooke Belson of Denver said Clinton doesn’t excite her, either, the way Sanders does. She said that Sanders is the only presidential candidate who is addressing the real issues the country faces.

“When I was a child, this is what I remembered what America used to be,” she said of Sanders' message. “It was for America. It was for the middle class. It wasn't the corporations. It wasn't how much money is donated. It wasn't buying the candidates.”

“It was the issues.”