Sanders launches second bid for presidency – By Holly Otterbein (Politico) / Feb 19 2019
In addition to his focus on income inequality, he plans to campaign on racial justice and a progressive foreign policy.
Bernie Sanders launched his second campaign for president on Tuesday — this time as a heavyweight candidate against a crowded field of liberals, instead of the passionate underdog taking on the anointed nominee.
The independent senator, running in the Democratic primary as a self-described democratic socialist, announced his campaign in an email to supporters.
But nearly four years after he kicked off his 2016 campaign at a 10-minute press conference outside the Capitol, this time will be a lot different. He starts as a frontrunner in the polls, armed with near-universal name ID, a massive email donor list, and a digital media empire that is currently unparalleled among other 2020 candidates. His left-wing policies, dismissed as fringe in 2016, have been embraced by much of the Democratic Party.
Sanders said he is seeking 1 million signatures for a petition backing his bid, a device that provides him with an opportunity to demonstrate the extent of his grass-roots support. He’s said repeatedly that he needs that help before taking on Wall Street, “the drug companies” and “the insurance companies” again in a second run.
Sanders’ core message will remain unchanged: He will continue his decades-long drumbeat against income inequality and a “corrupt” campaign finance system. Racial justice and a progressive foreign policy will also be at the forefront of his bid, Sanders’ advisers told POLITICO.
“Our campaign is about transforming our country and creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice,” Sanders wrote in his announcement email. “Our campaign is about taking on the powerful special interests that dominate our economic and political life. I’m talking about Wall Street, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex, the private-prison industry and the large multi-national corporations that exert such an enormous influence over our lives.”
As he has done in the past, Sanders also called President Trump a “racist” on Tuesday — and “a sexist, a xenophobe and someone who is undermining American democracy as he leads us in an authoritarian direction.”
Following humiliating defeats in 2016 in South Carolina and other states where African-Americans make up the majority of the Democratic primary electorate, Sanders is expected to attempt to do more, and earlier, outreach to black voters in 2020, and to draw a more explicit nexis between fighting economic inequality and racial inequality.
It wasn’t a mistake that Sanders’ first visit this year to an early primary state was to South Carolina on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. His speech there provided a preview of his revamped message.
“Racism … exists in this country today, and it exists when the median white family owns ten times more wealth than the median African-American family,” he said. “Racial equality must be central to combatting economic inequality, if we are to going to create a government that works for all of us, and not just the 1 percent.”
Another related focus for the campaign is winning over older voters. Sanders was estimated to have received more votes from young people in the primary than President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton combined, and narrowly won black voters under 30. But older Americans, particularly those of color, heavily favored Clinton.
Jeff Weaver, an adviser to Sanders, said “the challenge of the campaign is to reach out to older voters of all races, and how do you effectively do that — that’s an important challenge for us.”
“There’s got to be more of a focus on talking about issues that are immediately important to older voters … issues like health care and Social Security and retirement security,” he continued. “But I also think we have to draw a better connection between older and younger voters in terms of intergenerational appeal, so I think young people have to reach out to older people in their families and social circles as part of a campaign to win the support of older voters.”
Sanders cited other reasons he’s running again: to fight climate change, implement fair trade policies, take on the National Rifle Association, and “end the demonization of undocumented immigrants in this country and move to comprehensive immigration reform.”
An average of several recent polls compiled by RealClearPolitics shows Sanders in second place in a Democratic primary with 17 percent, behind former Vice President Joe Biden by about 10 points. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is in third with about 11 percent, and no other candidate breaks 10 percent.
A December email from Sanders demonstrates the small-dollar fundraising muscle that he enters the race with: A message about a potential run raised about $300,000 from nearly 11,000 donations, according to a Sanders aide. The average donation was $27. Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised about the same amount online the day she launched her exploratory committee.
David Duhalde, political director of the Sanders-founded Our Revolution, said the senator also benefits from the rise of left-wing groups such as his since 2016, as well as from the general move leftward of the Democratic electorate. Progressive activists, Duhalde said, are “ready to hit the door and phones for him.”
“The country has dramatically transformed since 2008 and 2016 in ways that I think many people in the Beltway don’t recognize, or don’t want to admit,” he said.
Duhalde said Our Revolution counts more than 250,000 members across the country.
Melissa Byrne, a 2016 Sanders veteran, said many of the first team’s young staffers are also now armed with more expertise, after having worked on other campaigns and other political operations: “You have this whole crew of people who are a whole lot more experienced and confident.”
But there will also be difficulties for Sanders in 2020. A few weeks before he launched his second bid, POLITICO and The New York Times reported on alleged sexual misconduct and harassment in his 2016 campaign. Sanders has apologized to the women who said they were sexually harassed by other employees on his campaign.
Sanders, who is 77, will also undoubtedly face questions about his age. And the left-wing lane that he had virtually all to himself in 2016 will be more crowded. He won’t have the benefit of absorbing any anti-Clinton votes in 2020, either. And many of his opponents have said they support the policies that served as the foundation of his 2016 campaign, including Medicare-for-All, free college and the $15 minimum wage.
Sanders’ team is making the bet that his long-held beliefs on progressive issues will set him apart.
“People in many ways are rightfully cynical about politics,” said Weaver. “And the fact that somebody has been consistent, including when it was not easy and including when it was perceived by many in the establishment to be politically disadvantageous to have stood for those issues, I think signals to voters that one is truly committed to those issues and that the person will aggressively pursue those policies and not trade them away when it’s hard.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/19/bernie-sanders-presidential-campaign-2020-1173598
