Socialist Bernie Sanders To Announce 2016 Candidacy

[knowone]

Bernie Sanders just said his official announcement will be on Tuesday. I like what he says I just don't think he can win, and would happily proved wrong.

 

[Deepcover]

Ed Schultz was pissed off with the President during Schultz's talk with Bernie Sanders and you know what I totally agree with him...The President should've picked on Fox News...What on earth was he thinking????? MSNBC???? Huh????? Really???????

 

[Rattrap]

On just about any candidate already one can type the name into Google News and pop up dozens of articles, but I thought this particular one on Sanders is very relevant, especially to those on the right who think 'socialist' is a bad word and immediately = anti-business:

What Kind of Mayor Was Bernie Sanders?

Most of Burlington’s business leaders initially distrusted Sanders. They didn’t know what a socialist would do once he held the reins of power. But even many of Sanders’s early opponents came to respect and even admire his willingness to listen to their views and his efforts to adopt progressive municipal policies.

Pomerleau was then—and remains today, at 97—one of Burlington’s richest residents. A longtime Republican, he made his money developing supermarkets, hotels, and shopping centers, and he owns much of Burlington’s commercial real estate. For decades, he has wielded considerable political influence, served as chair of the city’s police commission, and been its most generous philanthropist.

“When [Sanders] first ran for mayor, he was running against guys like me,” Pomerleau recalled in a recent interview.

Pomerleau, who voted against Sanders in 1981, knocked on his door the day after that election. “I said, ‘You’re the mayor, but it’s still my town,’” he recalled.

Pomerleau wasn’t happy when Sanders opposed his waterfront development plan, but he gradually got to know the mayor and came to admire his pragmatism, his bulldog tenacity to get things done, and his support for the local police.

“Bernie and I worked very well together for the betterment of the town,” Pomerleau said. “We were the odd couple.”

Pomerleau voted for Sanders in his three successful bids for re-election. And Sanders frequently called Pomerleau to ask his advice. They stayed in close contact, even after Sanders was elected to Congress.
[...]
“When Bernie first got elected, the local media said he was anti-business,” recalled Bruce Seifer, an architect of Sanders’s economic development efforts. “They called us the ‘Sanderistas.’”

After Sanders’s re-election victory in 1983, business groups concluded they could not defeat him and thus had to work with him. But many businesspeople also saw that Sanders shared their interest in “development”—what he saw as “good development”—while opposing projects that would hurt middle- and working-class neighborhoods or victimize low-wage workers.

“Bernie was never anti-growth, anti-development, or anti-business,” explained Monte. “He just wanted businesses to be responsible toward their employees and the community. He wanted local entrepreneurs to thrive. He wanted people to have good jobs that pay a living wage. If you could deal with that, you could deal with Bernie and Bernie would deal with you.”

The Sanders administration provided new firms with seed funding, offered technical assistance, helped businesses form trade associations (including the South End Arts and Business Association and the Vermont Convention Bureau), focused attention on helping women become entrepreneurs, funded training programs to give women access to nontraditional jobs, and lobbied the state government to promote business growth.
[...]
Under Sanders, Burlington became a magnet for attracting and incubating locally owned businesses, many of which expanded into large enterprises. Burton, the nation’s largest snowboard company, has its headquarters (as well as a snowboard museum) in Burlington. The city assisted Seventh Generation, a green cleaning-products firm, when it started in 1988. Today, with its downtown waterfront headquarters in a LEED-certified building and over $300 million in annual sales, it is one of Burlington’s largest employers. With the city’s help, Gardeners Supply Company, which sells environmentally friendly gardening products, moved to Burlington in 1983. Four years later, its founder, Will Raap, began the process of selling the firm to its workers. It now has over 250 employee-owners.

Who's got a problem with that?

 

[Jack Davenport]

Vermont is one of the least diverse states in the union. 96 percent white.
Also, Vermont has more non poor welfare recipients than any other state.
Basically there is a reason a socialist like Sanders is elected in that state. It is a microcosm and a mini experimentation in socialism. His ideas do not translate well for the whole country.
Try his policies in Columbia South Carolina and report back to us..

 

[Supafly]

I just found his daughter on the X Factor!

 

[MMMariah]

BC don't you mean that his policies don't translate well for the wealthiest Americans? Considering that 95% of the wealth earned in the US in the last 15 years has gone to the top 1% who also happen to be the ONLY people your party represents, I would imagine that you disagree with him and his policies.

 

[Rattrap]

So I know one or two of you are one-issue voters when it comes to guns, so before you continue thinking you'd never pull the lever for a blue candidate:
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallp...rnie-sanders-walks-a-fine-line-on-gun-control

"I think guns and gun control is an issue that needs to be discussed," Sanders told NPR's David Greene in an interview airing on Thursday's Morning Edition. "Let me add to that, I think that urban America has got to respect what rural America is about, where 99 percent of the people in my state who hunt are law abiding people."