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National electoral handicappers long ago decided that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee for president in 2016. Bernie Sanders, in their view, was a dogged challenger, a long-shot; at best someone to sharpen Clinton’s debate skills while we all waited for one of the Republicans to survive the free-for-all taking place on that side of the ballot.

But the results so far have surprised those pundits. Sanders has demonstrated far more appeal for voters than they had predicted, yet most continue to marginalize Sanders’ prospects by noting his age, his small state origins, his long-held socialist economic views and his lack of big-bucks donors.

The coronation of Hillary as nominee is inevitable, in their view.

When I look at those same results, though, I see another explanation. Sanders has spent his career listening to Americans. He knows their concerns because he has honestly been listening and understanding. Bernie is for real – and I can’t wait to cast my vote for him.

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National polling results show Sanders defeating each of the three Republican possible nominees handily – and by wider margins than Clinton. The numbers say he would be the strongest Democrat in the general election by far.

So the Establishment may have united behind Hillary, but the voters seem more excited by Sanders.

I admit I am an unrepentant optimist when it comes to outsider challengers of the Democratic elite. I’m always supportive of the contender who seems able to ignite the passions of the grass-roots against the party hierarchy. That party apparatus is increasingly indistinguishable from the Republicans – dependent on the same corporate money; unquestioning of the military-industrial complex; and paralyzed over global warming, terrorism and income inequality.

As a Latino, I find Sanders’ message about what ails our nation and what should be done to fix it rings clearly. My age and my ethnicity may tell the pollsters I should be for Clinton, but my heart and my brain tell me a Sanders presidency is what America needs.

I will vote for him in the primary – even if New Mexico’s in June comes too late to help decide the issue.

I also know that practically alone among the nations which select leaders by the people’s decision, the U.S. has not had a female head of state. Hillary Clinton is certainly qualified to be president and is a determined and articulate campaigner. If she is the Democratic nominee I will have no problem supporting her in November.

But Bernie Sanders offers something else.

He draws standing-room crowds because he speaks the truth without mincing his words. He emphasizes precisely what needs to be said – and what his audience recognizes is true: Our country has deserted the middle class, ignored poverty and pretended income inequality is something good!

He says it clearly: Power has been used to produce great wealth for a very few but the momentum has gone out of the American promise for the many.

A President Sanders would challenge Wall Street. He would close the offshore tax havens of the 1 percent. He would unflinchingly confront the fossil fuel industry, Big Pharma, corporate medicine and all the other contributors to the destruction of the middle class and its dreams of opportunity.

But most of all, he would re-ignite this nation’s flickering sense of itself as a country where people count more than money does. Without that, we have an oligarchy, not democracy.