I haven’t posted much about the ongoing Canadian federal election because well it’s not as exciting as the US one even though that’s more than a year away. Anyway I watched the Republican debate last night and my god what a joke, it’s a complete circus and while I despise Donald Trump, I have to say with him in the race a lot more people are paying attention to politics and that’s a good thing.
With an ironic twist, other than Trump saying he’d raise some taxes on wealthy I think I disagreed with pretty much everything the candidates said but I guess that’s not a surprise since I’m progressive on both social and fiscal matters.
Anyway on the Democratic side Bernie Sanders is gaining momentum and Time wrote a nice piece on him.
Without a single TV ad–or a single congressional endorsement–Sanders has exposed the weakness of the party’s Clintonian establishment while at the same time spotlighting its hunger for an ideological savior. Polls now indicate that if the nominating contests were held tomorrow, Sanders would edge out Clinton in Iowa and beat her in New Hampshire by 10 points. Nationally, he has cut Clinton’s lead from an impregnable 46 points to a crumbling 21 points in just two months.
But even those metrics don’t convey the extent of the Sanders phenomenon. At Clinton events, campaign staffers section off floor space before her speeches to make her crowds look densely packed. Sanders needs no barriers. His audiences are authentically huge–28,000 in Oregon, 11,000 in Arizona, 7,500 in Maine. His volunteer army, meanwhile, though mostly self-organized online, numbers more than 182,000 people spread out from rural Alaska to the Florida Keys, people who have asked the campaign how to improvise events, knock on doors and spread the gospel from campus quad to living room to farmer’s market.
Source: Time
I’m definitely a Bernie supporter and even though his views may actually hurt the Canadian/US relationship, I’m hoping that his economic policies can actually influence our politicians to do the same. I guess we’ll have to see how their election plays out…
As to the Canadian election, sigh I don’t know who to vote for as I don’t like any of the three major parties.
For your consideration regarding Sanders:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/09/17/bernie-sanderss-surge-doesnt-mean-the-democratic-race-is-wide-open-heres-why/
Only time will tell how this race turns out.
Thanks for the link but that article reads like a smear. Senator Sanders has been for civil rights before it was cool back in the early 60s and is a much better friend to minorities than Clinton, the only thing holding him back is name recognition and people not knowing his history. Once they find out his history, I’m sure they’ll change their tune. Also I’d be interested in learning about the people they polled, were they just self declared democratic supporters or were they actually the delegates that vote in the primary process?
Delegates are more politically savvy and should know Bernie better than the general public. Also it’s silly to say that winning Iowa & New Hampshire wouldn’t boost Bernie’s popularity, it’ll cause people (white & minorities alike) to look closer at this candidate and people will like what they see.