Why Bernie Sanders?

I just celebrated by 44th birthday and while there are a lot of things I have done to date, I can tell you one of the things I have NOT done. I have never voted.  

I'm one of the many who has watched each election cycle and became increasingly disgusted as I saw the same old, same old crap - mud slinging and lying and character attacks and candidates getting elected that then didn't do what they promised and now a Congress that basically refuses to work as one cohesive unit to get anything done. Disgusted that parties see any form of compromise as weakness instead of what it is - a NECESSARY aspect in any negotiation.

The biggest thing that really turned me off was seeing the many folks being elected making decisions NOT for the good of the people who elected them but for the good of whatever party they belong to. Casting their votes in order to keep their seats in office or to keep those big, fat corporate donors happy regardless what it did to regular folks like me.

I wasn't going to vote for someone like that.

(and while I'm at it, having researched the republican candidates and their positions on the issues and voting records, yeah - I won't be able to vote for anyone in that party at all.)

Enter this crazy old Jewish guy from Vermont. The guy no one had ever heard of unless you were from Vermont, in Congress or were heavily involved/interested in politics in general. A guy who isn't rich, doesn't have billionaire donors, flies coach as he campaigns from state to state, rides the subway to work, drives an old car, has crazy white hair and doesn't show up to work in $1000 suits. Just your typical, average guy.

When I began to research Bernie I noticed something I still find extraordinary when it comes to politicians. The things he is saying on the campaign trail today are the exact same things he's said for decades. You can pull up a video of him speaking from the early 90's and other than a difference in his appearance you'd think that video was made the day before. When you watch him speak you can see how genuine he is, how much passion he has for the people regardless if what he says is considered popular in DC.

I have no delusions that the man is perfect or some kind of political saint. He's not. Will he do all the things he wants to if elected? Probably not. Will he try? I bet he will. Are the issues and his solutions to them all 100% right and without need for further review and tweaking?  Maybe not. But I would rather have someone as POTUS who is genuine, who has strong character and who I feel is trustworthy even if he is a self described democratic socialist. Not JUST a socialist mind you. There is a difference.

Then you see who he's up against. That old battle-ax Hillary Clinton. The former First Lady, former NY State Senator and former Secretary of State. She's the favorite, the poster child for the Democratic party's chances to maintain control of the White house for at least 4 more years. She's also the candidate surveys and polls show as the most untrustworthy. The New Hampshire exit polls gave her a 6% rating vs Bernie Sanders who got over 90% when it came to trustworthiness.

NH Trusts Bernie over Hillary

You can search Hillary on Google and find all sorts of scandals - Travelgate, allegations of strong arming women accusing her husband of sexual misconduct and/or rape into silence, Whitewater, Benghazi, Filegate. The most recent being the whole email/private server thing.

Whether or not the many scandals involving Hillary are true as they have been reported, they continue to haunt her from decades back and as far as I am concerned, where there is smoke you usually find fire. Maybe she's not as involved as folks think. Maybe she's completely innocent of one but not another. Maybe she did them all and managed to get away with it.

Politicians are no stranger to scandals and I might trust her more if there had only been 1 or 2 things but dang - there are tons of them. I might trust her more if she appeared to truly want to regain the trust of the people by her actions rather than simply saying she has work to do in that area during a speech.

Thing is - I would really like to trust her. I would like to trust her because in the event Bernie Sanders does not win the Democratic nomination I will be forced to vote either for her or one of the Republican candidates. Not a choice I am looking forward to.

Bernie Sanders and his ability to reach the people and actually give Hillary a run for her money was certainly underestimated by not only Hillary but the DNC, the Republicans and even the media.  Heck, they barely covered him until just recently and if it wasn't for the internet and social media platforms I doubt he'd have done as well as he has. Yet despite being decimated  in all the early polls he managed to tie Hillary in Iowa with LESS than a single percentage of the votes and blew her out of the water in New Hampshire by double digits. He has erased the majority of her overall lead country wide. Clearly he is becoming a threat to Hillary's campaign.

Hillary has tried all the same stuff she did when she tried to beat Obama in 2008. The same dirty stuff politicians do to each other. But it isn't working because Bernie isn't the same kind of politician. He's not playing dirty like the rest of them. He's not taking money from billionaires yet managed to raise close to $7 MILLION dollars within 24 hours after the NH Primary by simply asking his supporters to donate to his campaign. Heck, there was such a run on the online giving it nearly broke the internet.

So why do I support Bernie Sanders?

I support him because he fights for people who cannot fight for themselves.  He fights for people that have absolutely NO SHOT at taking on the crap in DC. I support him because he has earned my support. He has also lit a new hope in a ton of people across the country. A hope that the crap in Washington might actually be fixable and that there is someone who might actually be willing to try and fix it.

Bernie lit that hope bright enough in me to not only change my voter registration from an Independent so I could vote in the Primary but also a hope that has done something no other candidate has been able to do.  I am going to vote in November.

#NotMeUs #FeelTheBern