Aki Soga

Free Press Engagement and Insights Editor

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA – The Bernie Sanders who took the stage Saturday night in Cedar Rapids was a more polished version of the Bernie Sanders Vermonters have known for years.

The senator from Vermont's tirade against inequality and injustice he delivered in Iowa just two days before the state’s presidential caucus was familiar stuff for anyone who has known Sanders for years. These were the same themes that marked his run for office as mayor, congressman and U.S. senator.

But the pitch was more polished, buffed by countless deliveries on the campaign trail. He still sounded like a professor giving a lecture he has delivered for years. Yet he rolled with the audience, riding their pitch, even laughing at their jokes. He looked liked he was having a good time.

This was a Sanders with fewer rough edges, who was less of the ideological steamroller who seemed only interested in making his point, but still full of his trademark fire and brimstone.

This was Sanders the presidential candidate, hardly slick and still too wonky, but more than an angry old man on the fringes of the political spectrum. Sanders was still angry, but he used his anger as a rallying cry to draw others into the fight – and his campaign. His immediate mission was to fire up his supporters so that they would turn out on Monday to caucus for him. .

And the crowd ate it up. The Grand Ballroom of the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in downtown Cedar Rapids lit up as Sanders hit one applause line after another.

The people who gathered in Cedar Rapids to hear Sanders Saturday night were his people, and he gave them what they came for.

Posted Jan. 30, 2016. Contact Aki Soga at (802)881-3616 or asoga@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/asoga.