Bernie Sanders hinted at his limitations if his rising presidential campaign gets to the White House, saying that a political revolution is needed to make his progressive reforms a reality.
“No president, not Bernie Sanders, not anybody else, can bring about the enormous changes we need to rebuild our crumbling middle class,” the Democrat presidential candidate said during the Saturday New Hampshire Democratic Convention. “No president can do it alone, unless we have a political revolution. Unless tens of millions of Americans are prepared to stand up, to get actively involved in the political process and make it very, very clear that this great country and our government belong to all of us and not just a handful of billionaires and campaign contributors.”
Sanders said Democrats must get more Americans in the political process and find a way to boost voter turnout. That was a key reason Democrats had such bad losses in the midterm elections, he said.
“How do we get working class Republicans to stop voting against their own best interests?” he said to chants of “Bernie, Bernie” from the packed crowd. “That will not happen with politics as usual.”
The remarks were included amongst a smattering of Sanders’ usual talking points on the need for universal healthcare, raising the minimum wage and guaranteeing parental leave.
But all of those progressive items may have a hard time moving in a GOP-controlled Congress.
Sanders did give a nod to the rise of his campaign over the last four and a half months, which began when the self-described socialist was seen as an afterthought.
“What looked like a fringe campaign is now seen as a campaign that is standing up for working Americans and is prepared to take on the billionaire class,” Sanders said.
Sanders still lags 20 percentage points behind Clinton in the latest CBS News/New York Times national poll. However, he is leading by four points in the New Hampshire primary from 35 percent to 31 percent, according to the latest poll from WBUR TV.
Sanders is also leading Clinton 43 to 33 percent in the Iowa caucus in the latest CBS News/YouGov poll.
