Jennifer Jacobs

jejacobs@dmreg.com

AMES, Ia. – Bernie Sanders told liberal Iowans Tuesday that he won't run for president unless he's certain millions of Americans are willing to launch a revolution.

"There's no way we are going to address the problems facing this country without a political revolution," Sanders, an independent U.S. senator from Vermont told an audience of 200-plus in a church basement in Ames.

"I have not yet decided whether I'm going to run or not," he said after someone in the audience yelled "Run Bernie!" and others applauded.

Sanders said it's extremely difficult to take on "the oligarchy" – the Koch brothers, who are worth $85 billion and are building the most powerful political organization in the country, Wall Street, drug companies, and other economic entities that spend unlimited money in politics to "literally buy candidates."

"When you take these guys on – if you're going to take them on – you have to know that you're going to have the kind of grassroots support necessary to run that campaign. And that's what I'm trying to ascertain," Sanders said.

He said he needs to see a mass mobilization of millions of people willing to engage in "a real struggle against the billionaire class."

"Yes! Yes," some people answered.

This was Sanders' fourth trip this year to the presidential testing grounds of Iowa, where he has booked least 13 public events over eight days. Tuesday morning, Sanders did some private stops - he met Hugh Espey, the executive director of the Iowa CCI Action Fund, for breakfast at the Drake Diner; he met with other liberal activists in the afternoon; and he toured the veterans hospital in Des Moines. He did a noon town hall meeting at Collegiate United Methodist Church in Ames, and was to deliver the keynote speech at a dinner for the liberal group Progress Iowa in Altoona Tuesday night.

When The Des Moines Register asked Sanders Tuesday about his reaction to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's decision Tuesday to explore running for president, Sanders answered "free country," and shrugged. He said he expects there will be a great deal of competition in the 2016 field. Bush was the first Republican to make a formal move; on the Democratic side, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is predicted to jump into the race in spring 2015.

If he runs for president, Sanders told the Ames audience he'd push for money for government infrastructure. He said he believes the best and fastest way to create millions of jobs is fastest way to do is rebuild the nation's crumbling roads, bridges, water systems and other infrastructure. He said he wants to fight for health care for all through a single-payer system. He wants to make it easier for workers to form a union. And he wants to break up financial institutions focused only on profit instead of pushing capital into the U.S. economy.

Sanders expressed dismay that so many Americans "don't even know who their members of Congress are." Sixty-three percent of Americans didn't vote in the mid-term elections last month, he said. He described Denmark, where voter turnout is close to 90 percent and two-thirds belong to trade unions. People have affordable, quality child care, he said. Everyone has health care. College is free – "actually they'll pay you a little bit because you have living expenses," he said.

Ages zero to four are the most important formative years of a human being's life but "we don't have a child care system that comes close to adequate," he said. And for the U.S. economy to survive in a global economy, it's imperative students are well educated, he said.

"These are not utopian ideas," Sanders said. "They are not radical ideas. They are fairly common sensical ideas that can happen when you have a government that is directed by the people themselves and not by wealthy powerful corporate interests."

Frances Mendenhall, 66, drove from Omaha, Neb., to see Sanders.

"He's just fearless," she told the Register after the speech. "And he's right on all the issues. He's talking about a nationwide uprising. It has got to happen, and he can't do it alone."

Iowa State University student Colin John, 20, called Sanders' speech "inspiring."

"It's definitely not mainstream. He's not pro-establishment or pro-money in politics," John said.

John said he'd vote for Sanders over Clinton, partly because she has taken "hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wall Street for doing speeches. She's going to represent their interests over the average 99 percent."

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