Kathleen Gray and Niraj Warikoo

Detroit Free Press

YPSILANTI — The line snaked for several blocks as more than 9,000 people crowded into the Convocation Center at Eastern Michigan University to see Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during his first visit to Michigan this election season.

The crowd, mostly young people, came to hear his messages on income inequality, the need for campaign finance reform and aggressive action to protect the environment. And Sanders did not disappoint.

“The issue that we’re dealing with now: whether or not we’re going to have a government which represents all of the people of our country or whether we’re going to have a government owned and controlled by wealthy contributors,” he said. “We have a corrupt campaign finance system, which is undermining American democracy. We have a system in which a small number of people are making huge campaign contributions.”

He played to the crowd, with a call for providing free college tuition, refinancing student debt at the lowest possible interest rate, removing marijuana from the schedule 1 list of illegal controlled substances and raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

And he encouraged the crowd to turn out to vote during the primary on March 8 and continue the momentum that his campaign gained with a landslide victory in New Hampshire last week.

“Our campaign has come a very long way in the last nine months. When we began, we were 30 points down in New Hampshire. Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way. When we began, we were way down in Michigan, and it ain’t going to turn out that way, either,” he said. “What this campaign is about, in a very focused political way, is that we do well when turnout is large. We could struggle and lose when turnout is low.

“You are the future of the country. You’re not going to stand aside while a handful of campaign contributors determine the future,” he said.

In Dearborn, talking at a UAW local union hall, Sanders touched on issues of trade, saying he didn't support the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement and promised to rebuild manufacturing in America, not China.

"We don't need unfettered free trade. We need fair trade," he said.

The coveted endorsement of the UAW wasn't delivered at the Dearborn event, although he received a rousing reception.

"We are going through our (endorsement) process ... we are right now surveying our members," said UAW president Dennis Williams last week. "I think right now, people are conflicted. I think right now, people are watching with interest what the candidates are saying."

Sanders' message in Ypsilanti resonated with the crowd, which repeatedly hooted and hollered at the points they liked and booed when he talked about Republicans and two of the wealthiest families in America — the Waltons, who own Walmart and much more, and the Koch Brothers, who are generous campaign donors to GOP candidates and causes.

“He is the most forward-thinking and progressive candidate,” said Connor Priest, 20, a sophomore at the University of Michigan, who counts income inequality and getting the money out of politics as his top concerns. “His ideas are best for the future of the country. I like Hillary, as well. I like a lot of what she stands for, but I don’t think she’s strong enough on some of the issues.”

For Sarah Gallagher, an earth and environmental student at U-M, Sanders is the only candidate who’s talking about a carbon tax.

“I’m really concerned about the environment, so I love what Bernie has to say,” she said.

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The Flint water crisis, which Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been focusing on in debates, interviews and a visit to the city last week, also came up as Sanders said he met with seven people from Flint before his rally.

“I obviously have read the newspapers, but I really did not know how ugly and horrible it is, what is going on in the community. It is beyond my comprehension that in the year 2016, we are poisoning children,” he said. “But if the local government can’t protect those children, the state government can’t protect those children, then the federal government better get in there and protect those children.”

The Michigan Republican Party was quick to jump on Sanders' proposals, saying they would only hurt Michiganders.

"His tax-and-spend liberal policies would place an undue burden on hard-working taxpayers, causing job losses and further damaging our national economy," Ronna Romney McDaniel, the Michigan Republican Party chairwoman, said in a statement.

And at the same time as Sanders rally, Republican presidential candidate John Kasich was speaking to students at Michigan State University in East Lansing before heading to Utica for a town hall meeting at the Macomb County Republican Party’s headquarters.

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Contact Kathleen Gray: 517-372-8661, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal