Story highlights Bernie Sanders talked his anti-poverty program in rural West Virginia

He visited one of the nation's poorest counties

Kimball, West Virginia (CNN) Bernie Sanders, who has staked his presidential campaign on fighting poverty and income inequality in America, on Thursday took his message to one of the poorest counties in America.

In the first stop of a day-long swing the Sanders motorcade careened along a two-lane road in rural McDowell County, West Virginia -- the state's southernmost point -- on its way to a "community conversation" at Five Loaves & Two Fishes Food Bank.

The Vermont senator's remarks focused on poverty in America. He and a group of panelists spoke and listened to residents for more than an hour in what he called an "informal hearing, informal discussion."

"We want to talk about the problems so that I and the American people can understand what's going on," he said. Sanders drew from familiar refrains in his campaign stump speech, reshuffling things a bit and refraining from mentioning his Democratic opponent, front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Sanders also lambasted the current campaign finance system, a cornerstone of his presidential platform.

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