Bernie Sanders stumps for former, assails President Trump in return to Iowa

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders returned to Iowa on Friday recalling the successes of the progressive revolution he spurred in the Democratic Party during the 2016 presidential campaign and imploring Iowans to keep up the fight in the 2018 midterms.

Sanders, a Vermont independent and the runner-up to the 2016 Democratic nomination, appeared in Des Moines for a rally in support of Pete D’Alessandro, a top aide to that campaign who’s running for Congress in Iowa’s 3rd District.

Later Friday, he headlined a Cedar Rapids event in opposition to the Republican-led tax reform package passed into law late last year.

“We are in the process in Iowa — and Illinois, Vermont, all over this country — of transforming American politics, of ending government by the rich and for the rich for government of the people, by the people and for the people,” Sanders told the crowd in Des Moines, reprising his core message from his presidential campaign. “I’m here today because Pete D’Alessandro is in the middle of that transformational struggle.”

Sanders ticked off the long list of priorities he and D’Alessandro support — a $15-an-hour minimum wage, universal “Medicare for all” health care, tuition-free higher education, legal protections for the undocumented, stricter gun regulations — while encouraging his younger, more liberal constituency to remain engaged in politics.

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“Don’t sit aside and think that the other person is so smart that they deserve to be in Congress, they deserve to be president, they deserve to be in the state legislature. Break through that psychological wall,” Sanders said. “Trust me, I work in the United States Senate. If some of these guys can sit there, everybody in this room can be on the school board or in the state legislature.”

Several attendees readily acknowledged showing up Friday to see the endorser while knowing little about the endorsee.

“I just wanted to see Bernie Sanders again,” said Crystal Koehler, a 34-year-old finance worker wearing a custom-made Sanders T-shirt. “It’s been awhile.”

Sanders’ support, she said, will go a long way toward securing her vote for D’Alessandro in the wide-open six-way Democratic primary for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District.

“I don’t know anything about (D'Alessandro), to be honest,” Koehler, of West Des Moines, said as the rally began. “I’m here because Bernie is saying we should support him. If Bernie endorses him, I’m thinking I can probably get behind him.”

On stage, D’Alessandro reflected on his work for Sanders while underscoring his commitment to the liberal agenda Sanders represents, recalling their initial conversation in which the Vermont senator asked him, first, if he was aware of his avowed socialist views and, second, whether he was “comfortable” with them.

“I could’ve been David Axelrod or James Carville,” D’Alessandro said, referencing the top strategists to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns, “but if I wasn’t comfortable with what the movement is supposed to be, it wouldn’t have worked, and Bernie Sanders knew that."

In an interview with the Register earlier this week, Sanders stressed that his support for D’Alessandro runs deeper than political payback to a top campaign aide.

“It’s not just a question of personal loyalty,” Sanders said. “It is true that I know Pete and I like Pete, but it goes beyond that. There are people who have worked for me that I would not come and campaign for.”

The meeting at an East Village event space drew about 200 and, like so many of Sanders’ 2016 campaign events, skewed younger and more diverse than a typical Iowa politics crowd.

Later Friday, Sanders was the featured speaker at the Cedar Rapids rally hosted by Not One Penny, a liberal advocacy group organized against last year’s federal tax overhaul.

He met an energized crowd of more than 500 at the Veterans Memorial Building downtown, delivering a sustained attack on Donald Trump in which he repeatedly accused the Republican president of lying about his plans and priorities while running for office in 2016.

“We are living in unprecedented times,” Sanders said. “We are living in a time when there is a strong drift toward oligarchy, and we have a president who is moving us in an authoritarian direction.”

He framed the tax reform as a giveaway to “the wealthy and large corporations” who already enjoy historically high levels of wealth concentration and income inequality.

“When you live in a country in which the three wealthiest families own more wealth than the bottom half of America, do you think those three families need more in tax breaks?” Sanders asked, drawing a resounding “No!” from the crowd.

“You’re damn right they don’t!” he replied.

Friday’s rally was the centerpiece of an Iowa campaign for Not One Penny that includes TV, digital and billboard advertising in the 1st District largely aimed at incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Rod Blum.

“It’s about making sure people understand what vote their congressperson took on what is the biggest piece of legislation we’ve seen since the Affordable Care Act, and what is most likely the biggest piece of legislation this administration will pass,” said Nicole Gill, the group’s executive director.

Blum, who is viewed as one of the more vulnerable congressional incumbents in 2018, voted for the bill.

A spokesman for the Republican Party of Iowa responded on Friday that popular support for the tax law is rising.

“While Bernie is entertaining his base with attacks on Republicans, at the end of the day, middle-class Iowans are seeing bigger paychecks because of conservative leadership,” spokesman Jesse Dougherty said. “Iowa's Republican delegation will continue to focus on growing the economy rather than on a progressive, socialist agenda."

In the interview earlier this week, Sanders acknowledged and dismissed speculation that a one-day, two-city visit to Iowa might suggest 2020 presidential ambitions.

“People can interpret that however they want,” he said. “I have not made any decision about 2020. I think it is much too early to be talking about that. The immediate task is 2018.”

Sanders’ political objective in 2018, he said, is to elect more Democrats and to encourage greater political involvement particularly by young and working-class people.

“Right now my job is to represent Vermont in the Senate and do whatever I can to elect progressive candidates for this coming midterm election,” he said. “That’s where my focus is. It’s a little bit too early to be thinking about a presidential race.”