Hello Progressives. There's a lot of us out there who sense that Bernie Sanders' refreshing, almost astonishing authenticity and unwaivering presentation of specific policy goals is just what we need for this country in the next presidential term. If you like the idea of ending military misadventures abroad, taking corporate influence out of campaign financing, rebuilding our infrastructure, while at the same time creating tons of jobs, and delivering a living wage to people working a 40-hour work week, all while taxing Wall Street, and not Main Street while paying for these initiatives; If you're someone who likes, or even loves the idea of a Bernie Sanders presidency, but fears it could just never happen, I want to address your concerns because it can happen, so let's dig in. 1. Bernie is too far to the left to win a general election in this extremely polarized political climate. OK - to address this let's look at how people actually vote, and then we'll see that this polarization heavily favors Democrats. In the last six presidential elections, regardless of the Democratic nominee, 18 states plus the District of Columbia have voted blue for a total of 242 electoral votes. Remember it takes 270 to win. Thirteen states have consistently voted red in those last six elections for a total of just 102 electoral votes. This has to do with population density, and it's a fact that has conservative commentator George Will shitting his slacks. Check out that link here But, many of the states that for one reason or another didn't go six for six, like say - Arkansas because Bill Clinton happened to be from there - those are actually red states, so if we redo the red/blue distribution with more realistic expectations - they way people actually vote - what we get is 247 electoral votes for the Democrats versus 206 for the Republicans. This means that Democrats need just 23 electoral votes from toss-up states, while the GOP needs 64 electoral votes from those same states in order to ensure a victory. It also shows how really there are only very few true toss-up states left. Red states vote red. Blue states vote blue. This happens with extreme consistency. And when that happens, Democrats - regardless of the nominee - have a distinct electoral vote advantage. So stop worrying that Bernie can't win the general. No state flips from blue to red due to the Democratic nominee. It just doesn't happen. We're talking about two and a half decades of research here. See - imagine the person who says "Oh - I would have voted for Hillary, but now that the nominee is Bernie, I'm going to vote for Jeb Bush, or Scott Walker or Ted Cruz." This person is a fiction. 2. Bernie is not actually that far left Bernie is not actually as far to the left as many people think. Now you can compare him to Eisenhower, Nixon and even Ronald Reagan on many points in this book [Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party by Geoffrey Kabaservice] to see just how moderate he stacks up. But also, I want to point out his recent comments on immigration, for example. Bernie wants a path to citizenship for those people who are already here. He does not want an unbridled influx of more immigrants. In late July he even told that to a Hispanic chamber of commerce. He then repeated it to Ezra Klein in a clip that you can see here. On gun rights, he voted to prohibit foreign aid that restricts U.S. gun ownership, to prohibit suing gun makers for other's gun mis-use, He even voted yes on allowing firearms in checked luggage aboard Amtrak. This is a guy who can capture the interest of more conservative people than you might think. Even his more left-ish ideas, though, say free state college tuition - he plans to pay for it not by taxing you and me. Bernie has ingeniously proposed a plan that will tax - in a very tiny way - what's known as high-frequency trading on Wall Street. These are trades that are run more or less by bots that make money for people who are already super wealthy and it just moves things around in a microscopic way. This is something that actually destabilizes markets and is no good for anybody. Now, think about this. The tiny tax from this would generate $185 billion over ten years. It's so microscopic that, for example, on a $100,000 trade, the tax would be just $10. What's too far to the left about that?

This legislation is offset by imposing a Wall Street speculation fee on investment houses, hedge funds, and other speculators of 0.5% on stock trades (50 cents for every $100 worth of stock), a 0.1% fee on bonds, and a 0.005% fee on derivatives.

Note: I believe honesty is always the best policy, so I have to disagree with his math here. I've read the bill. It states:So a $100,000 trade would be taxed at $500, not $10 and a $100,000 bond trade would be taxed at $100. It's still chump change IMO, but it's more than what the guy in the video is saying and I feel it's important to set the record straight.

Source: Press Release Sanders: Make College Tuition-Free

At the bottom of the Press Release is a link to a pdf file where you can read the actual bill.

OK back to the transcript:



See we need your help in getting the word out about things like that and if you think abandoning the message makes sense because it might never be heard over the din of Super PAC attack ads, then you've already really given up on democracy, haven't you? 3. Bernie has shown he can win conservative votes A third counter to the idea of Bernie's too far left status lies in his election record. Bernie has won some of the most conservative districts in Vermont elections over the years. How? With straight talk and sensible ideas. He's not hiding anything and he doesn't equivocate. Many people on the right are drawn to exactly a quality like that in their leaders. This one just happens to actually be looking out for their best interests. In fact, I think Bernie could even appeal to some on the far right. Some of the Tea Party might see a kindred spirit - an angry elder white guy with no-bullshit rhetoric. He's the experienced, policy-savvy moral version of Donald Trump in a bizzaro-world, fun house mirror kind of way. He doesn't flip-flop, and he'll speak bluntly to you. Attributes that win in circles where anger at the status quo rules the day and regular folks want to hear clear-stated policy ideas. To further illustrate this, look how Bernie is going right into red states like Louisiana, Texas and Arizona - so called "enemy territory - and drawing tens of thousands of people to his rallies. Now, one more point to address the concern that Bernie is just too risky a choice. The way I've pledged to never bash Hillary during this whole process, there's just too much at stake here. There are many, many people who see her as a deeply controversial figure in her own right. A July 30 Quinnipiac poll found that 57% of voters think Hillary is not honest and trustworthy. She could be destabilized at any moment - unfairly, and by Republican spin - but we do need to lay our cards down and acknowledge that Hillary and Bernie are both gambles to some extent. Between concerns over use of private e-mail while Secretary of State, and possible foreign donor conflicts of interest for her non profit organization, Hillary is not immune to a campaign extinction-level event if the right Republican political consultant finds the sweet spot to attack her in the right way at the right time. You must at least weigh this reality against whatever you think may be unstable about Bernie's campaign. Concern#2 - two of the very things you like most about Bernie will defeat him. First, Bernie doesn't have the money or the political machine behind him. To this I say - the old way of doing things was to woo super wealthy interests and return favors once elected. This buys campaign advertising, including televised ads, direct mail, saturation bombing, expensive polling, expert consultancy, an inside baseball of every kind, basically. The new way of doing things? Twitter. Facebook. Youtube. If you think I'm kidding, you need to read this book So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson. The power of Twitter to shame, to raise awareness, to motivate, to connect people and ideas cannot be overstated. Twitter is the national conversation. People are fired, some take their own lives I hate to say. Statehouse flags come down. Marriage laws are rewritten. Policing practices fall under nationwide scrutiny. Social media changes public opinion. And it's free. And when a campaign like Bernie's needs things that aren't free, that vast social network rises to action. Just think of the 100,000 people who came together on July 29 for Bernie's campaign kickoff across the country in small and not-so-small gatherings. If a $20 donation had been suggested in any kind of way at all - and it wasn't, of course - but say it had. That would have raised $2 million in just one night. Think about it. There's plenty of money when people give a shit. The obvious upside? Bernie is not beholden to the chosen few moneyed interests. Period. And this very idea, in turn, supercharges the volunteerism and boots on the ground willing to spread the word at phone banks, door to door and at huge campaign rallies across the nation. We've seen it. In MN - 5,000. [sic - MN was 3,000] CO - 6,000. WI - 10,000. AZ - 11,000. This is you and me doing this. This is true democracy, and that's something you can't put a price on, because by definition, it can't be bought. And as this 2009 analysis from the Center For American Progress shows, Millennials make up 36% of the voting block in 2016. That's nearly 40%. And you know what? Their ideas are very progressive. These folks - well - they don't watch TV. So keep your multi-million dollar attack ads. This exponentially growing new community is way more connected and powerful than any of that. OK, your second concern that what you like about Bernie might just defeat him may go something like this. Bernie speaks truth to power, and those powers - multi-national corporations, global banks, people who trade money for a living, offering nothing really, just existing solely to increase their own obscene wealth - these forces will try to crush our man with everything they've got. But think about what you're really saying. To vote for a candidate out of fear who appeases those who would destroy him or her if they strayed too far from the gross ever-ballooning self-interests of the moneyed over-class is to submit and admit to an already-lost democracy. A vote in fear is not really a vote. It's an affirmation of oligarchy. And answer this: What exactly are they going to do to Bernie? Those voices don't exercise their vote through the franchise. They build a candidate during the campaign, and they let the oligarchy reign after the election. But what do they do when a candidate can't be bought? How do they bring him down? How precisely do they exact retribution for not following the rules of the oligarchy? I think we're looking at four basic ways. Let's address each. Tactic #1. Obviously withhold campaign financing. This one almost doesn't need addressing. Bernie is not interested in taking this money. That's the whole point. He's going out of his way to steer clear of this influence. Tactic #2. Try to block his messages. By trying to keep voters from knowing Bernie and understanding his policy ideas, they can undermine his support goes the argument. Well, the media is already being told by their corporate overlords to by and large ignore this candidate. And I need only point out once again the campaign rally stats to suggest to you that this isn't exactly working. Bernie has had the biggest attendance at an event of any candidate - red or blue - in the 2016 campaign so far - and that was in red Arizona.

Tactic #3. Wage war with nasty attack ads. Well this is a given regardless of the Democratic nominee, and I suggest to you that Bernie could very well hold up much better. His unclinching convictions over decades of policy making no doubt provide ballast to weather this storm. Bernie will fare a lot better than the simple candidate who is always looking over their shoulder for how what they said might be interpreted later to be used against them. Tactic #4. Rig the vote. We all know by now that to the extent big money can, they do try to undermine the public's access to the vote. The key point here is that this occurs regardless of the Democratic nominee. The right is not going to go easy on Hillary because she has more friendly corporate ties. They want a Republican in the White House. Period. They did it famously in Bush vs. Gore, and they did it to Obama with the disenfranchisement of minority voters across the south. See those were prepackaged mainstream opponents. In 2000, the Supreme Court even forced that year's tragic "criminal appointment of the Executive Office" and that was against the blandest candidate of them all. So don't think Bernie is going to incite some kind of crazy shift in dirt tactics on the right. They want Hillary's head on a plate just as much. Believe me. In all of these ways, Bernie's campaign is less vulnerable than Hillary's. Because he has a dividing wall between those he represents - the people - and those that would seek to control him for their narrow greedy interests. He's the safer choice. Look - the next president will appoint two, if not three Supreme Court Justices. Given the ever-increasing power of this institution in our society, it's safe to say the future of our democracy hangs in the balance. So vote. And make sure everyone you know votes. And vote for the Democratic nominee, whoever that may be. But right now, if you believe in his wisdom, his forthrightness and his tenacity, then know that there's not a single good reason to place your primary vote elsewhere but for Bernie Sanders.

Note: This video was uploaded August 7 - after the Phoenix rally, but before his visit to the West Coast.)