IOWA CAUCUSES

The one Bernie Sanders question that just won't go away

Kevin Hardy
kmhardy@dmreg.com
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at a campaign event on the campus of Luther College Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016, in Decorah, Iowa.

FAYETTE, Ia. — Even among U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ most enthusiastic Iowa crowds, one fundamental question about his candidacy just won’t go away.

Audiences love his plans for tuition-free college. They cheer and whistle as he talks of putting the squeeze on Wall Street and the uber-rich. And his calls for a single-payer “Medicare for all” health care program are generally a stump speech favorite among his raucous supporters.

But the Vermont senator continually faces questions from supporters about how he’ll get any of it done given a deadlocked Congress and rampant partisan divide in Washington.

After trailing in the polls for months, Sanders’ has closed the gap with front-runner Hillary Clinton, putting the two in an effective dead heat in Iowa, according to recent polls (The latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll showed Sanders trailing Clinton by two points among likely Democratic caucusgoers).

But the question of how a President Sanders would usher in meaningful legislative accomplishments continues to nag his audiences here.

On Sunday, a woman in the audience at Upper Iowa University posed the question this way:

“How do you propose to get your wishes pushed through?” she said. “How do you get Congress to agree?”

By now, Sanders is used to this line of questioning.

“Good. Excellent question,” he said. “It comes up all the time. And it should come up all the time.”

The answer, Sanders said, demands a new brand of American politics, in which politicians respond to the wishes of the masses, not the whims of the elite.

His self-described “political revolution” requires a national uprising, he said, in which millions of people stand up to demand fundamental change. He often points to other movements — the Civil Rights movement, women’s rights and gay rights — as blueprints for ushering in sweeping political change.

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On Sunday, he pointed to his plans to make public colleges tuition-free and to lower student loan interest rates as a prime example:

“I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that if millions of young people stood up and told the Congress in one way or another — through emails, through phone calls, through demonstrations — that they were sick and tired of mortgaging their future because of the crime of wanting to get a higher education, when millions of those young people stand up, you know what? We will substantially lower interest rates on student debt,” he said. “We will make public colleges and universities tuition-free.

“But if young people do not do that, no, nothing will change. That’s the answer.”

As he often does, Sanders insisted that the premise of his platform relies on a citizenry that remains politically active long beyond Election Day.

“If you think you can get off the hook by voting for me, that ain’t enough,” Sanders said.

Tom Haes, 67, a former Green Party member who recently registered as a Democrat to caucus for Sanders, has no doubt that Sanders’ prescription for a national movement is doable.

“I think it’s started. It’s underway,” he said looking on as the crowd of nearly 500 dissipated after Sanders’ Independence rally. “You can see it’s underway.”

AT THE EVENTS

SETTINGS: Luther College gymnasium in Decorah; Upper Iowa University student center in Fayette; Heartland Acres Agribition Center in Independence; University of Northern Iowa gymnasium in Cedar Falls.

CROWDS: More than 2,000 in Decorah; about 350 in Fayette; nearly 500 in Independence; more than 1,100 in Cedar Falls

REACTIONS: Sanders’ crowds were loud and energetic Sunday, especially those at the three college campuses.

WHAT’S NEXT: Sanders will campaign in Iowa Falls, Ames, Newton and Grinnell on Monday. He will go on to attend CNN’s democratic forum in Des Moines.