Sanders, Warren to attend progressive Phoenix rally

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party that would prefer a more liberal alternative to their presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton is in full force in downtown Phoenix this weekend.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the dream 2016 candidate for many Democratic populists who has declined to get into the race, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the left-leaning independent who so far has posed the most serious primary challenge to Clinton, both will address the annual Netroots Nation gathering at the Phoenix Convention Center.

Sanders still is considered an extreme long shot to win the Democratic nomination, but he has been drawing big crowds of energetic supporters. He and Warren already have been tugging Clinton leftward on issues such as comprehensive immigration reform and free trade.

“Bernie Sanders shows that people are hungry for a choice,” said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a national economic-populist organization with more than 18,000 Arizona members that has worked with Democratic U.S. Reps. Raúl Grijalva and Ruben Gallego. “...He’s talking about the economic issues. He’s out there saying things like ‘I won’t have Wall Street executives in my Cabinet.’

“That matters, and I think that the huge enthusiasm that you’re seeing for him shows how hungry the voters are for someone who’s going to address those issues that are really meaningful to voters.”

Sanders will be joined by fellow 2016 Democratic hopeful Martin O’Malley, a former Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor, at a 10:30 a.m. Saturday Netroots Nation town-hall forum at the Convention Center. Sanders also will appear at a 7 p.m. Saturday campaign rally.

Warren will give the Netroots Nation keynote this morning.

Clinton, the former secretary of State and senator from New York, will be absent from the event , though her campaign will have staff at the convention. She is speaking in Iowa today and delivering the keynote address at the Arkansas Democrats’ annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on Saturday.

“Our campaign looks forward to earning the support of the Democrats participating in this conference but Hillary Clinton has scheduling conflicts which will prevent her from attending,” Clinton spokesman Tyrone Gayle told The Arizona Republic in an e-mail. “She wishes them the best on their conference.”

The four-day progressive Netroots Nation convention, which started Thursday, is at the same downtown venue where controversial Republican presidential contender Donald Trump on Saturday revved up 4,200 supporters with his attacks on Mexico and Mexican immigrants.

This weekend though, the focus is on left-of-center politics and issues. Also on tap for today: a march and rally against long-serving Republican Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the illegal-immigration hardliner whose department was found by a federal judge to have racially profiled Latinos.

Clinton, who has been running a deliberative — some say too cautious — campaign, may be missing an opportunity by skipping Netroots Nation and avoiding her critics on the left, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

“She’d gain a lot of street cred if she went to Netroots Nation and talked to people,” Sabato said. “Now they’re going to say, ‘How come you’re not for fill-in-the-blank’ or whatever it is they’ll ask. She’s got to give answers, because eventually she’s going to have to face those questions. Right now, people are wondering what’s going on. Come on, what’s she afraid of?”

Still, Clinton ultimately has little to fear from Sanders in the Democratic primary, which lets her employ the risk-adverse strategy, he said.

According to the rolling average of national polls tallied by the RealClearPolitics website, Clinton as of Thursday had a 45.6 percentage point advantage over Sanders. Other candidates such as O’Malley, former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and former Rhode Island Gov. and Sen. Lincoln Chafee are barely registering with Democratic voters.

“Our analysis is that he doesn’t have a shot,” Sabato said. “Even if he wins (key early caucus and primary states) Iowa and New Hampshire, he is not going to get the Democratic nomination. He’s going to do well where people like (past anti-war Democratic candidates) Eugene McCarthy or Howard Dean did well: White states with lots of liberals. Any place where you have a high concentration of minorities: No way.”

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which ran the effort to draft Warren to run for the Senate and raised $1.1 million for her, considers Warren a close ally in its push to make “big, bold economic-populist ideas,” such as expanding Social Security, debt-free college and Wall Street accountability, as part of the national debate and central 2016 campaign issues.

“There’s a rising economic-populist tide in America and she is very much the personification of that,” said Adam Green, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s other co-founder. “Folks like Raúl Grijalva and Ruben Gallego are also part of what we call the Elizabeth Warren-wing of American politics. Fighting for the little guy. Willing to challenge power.”

Warren and Sanders have a growing and passionate following, he said, because of their willingness to embrace the economic populist topics. The progressives’ hope is that whoever the nominee is will recognize the public appetite for those issues and use them to inspire and turn out voters.

“There’s an open question about how big and bold and ambitious Hillary Clinton is willing to be,” Green said. “We’re optimistic that she’s going in the right direction and hoping that she chooses ‘big and bold,’ but Bernie Sanders being in the race puts oxygen in the room for boldness.”

What: Bernie Sanders Campaign Rally.

When: 7 p.m. Saturday.

Where: Phoenix Convention Center, 100 N. Third St., Lower Level North Building Hall 4.

RSVP for the event at BernieSanders.com.