The Latest: Supporters mob populist Democrat Bernie Sanders

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

2:45 p.m.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' appearance at The Des Moines Register's political "soapbox" brought out hundreds of people, who laughed when the populist liberal pointed to a helicopter flying overhead.

"There's Donald Trump. What can we do?" Sanders quipped. "I apologize. We left the helicopter at home. It's in the garage. We forgot to bring it."

Supporters and media crews mobbed Sanders as he walked the fairgrounds, his blue button-down shirt drenched in sweat. At the Iowa Democratic Party booth, Curt Pocius (POH'-shuhs) asked Sanders to autograph a $1 dollar bill, telling the senator, "It's all I've got." Sanders laughed and obliged.

After a quick stop for a root beer, Sanders' entourage was cheered by people drinking beers at The Depot. "Give 'em hell, Bernie," yelled one man as Sanders walked by. "Thank you," he replied.

FULL story at link.


Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during the Iowa State Fair, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8093fbd00a084a87a6f8b35381480f31/latest-front-runners-clinton-trump-head-iowa-fair

[Bjorn Against]

1. That crowd looks like more than "hundreds" to me

[PowerToThePeople]

3. agree. n/t

[merrily]

5. Sure does--and we cannot even see where it begins and ends. AP is too far right!

[George II]

12. I think most of those in the distance were on line to see the butter cow.

[merrily]

13. k

[questionseverything]

15. the butter artist has a sense of irony i think

in honor of the election year.....

from the article


<<<In the Agriculture Building, Clinton walked past plates of carrots, beets and large cabbages and peered at the fair's famous butter cow statue and a butter statue honoring the board game Monopoly.////////////////

you know monopoly right,where one person wins everything

just my interpretation

[Fred Sanders]

17. The game "Monopoly" was the second most fun board game ever invented. More fun when drunk negotiating.

[George II]

20. We used to love that game when we were kids, we played it for hours on end. I liked the little guy..

...with the white moustache and blue suit.

[Bjorn Against]

25. I heard that guy has endorsed Hillary

[progree]

48. Yup--v--v--v

Last edited Sat Aug 15, 2015, 11:02 PM - Edit history (1)

(Seen at the Iowa State Fair)

[RufusTFirefly]

63. Monopoly's little man was allegedly based on Samuel Insull

Insull was sort of the Ken Lay of his time.

[NorthCarolina]

104. ...

[Fred Sanders]

26. As kids, as teens, as adults, sober or not, always fun to me. Capitalist swine that I am!

[wendylaroux]

52. wait..Hillary was there?

just kidding,


i like Hillary.

[Aerows]

67. Don't dis the butter cow

The butter cow is non-fatisan. I don't have a lactose-adaisial attitude toward the butter cow.

[Helen Borg]

11. Technically...

Up to 1999 people it's "hundreds".

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

27. Yes, it's true. However, "several thousand" could have also worked.

[progressoid]

30. I was there when Obama was there 8 years ago.

Bernie's crowd looks a lot bigger than Obama's did IMO. Although, Obama did have a large media entourage following him.

[cheapdate]

59. If the crowd that fades off into the distance to the left

is Bernie's crowd, then it's several thousand people, If it's just the crowd in front, then it's hard to say, since the photo cuts off some of the scene.

[NBachers]

2. This has got to be a grueling schedule for him to follow.

I have enough trouble dragging my body home after an eight hour day in the same place five days a week.

[Enthusiast]

4. He will be an amazing president.

[merrily]

6. Bernie's in the pocket of the Big Voter!

[Volaris]

19. That's right!!!

How can our billion$ possibly compete with that kind of unfair, unequal advantage??? It's a suppression of Free Speech I say, and the Supreme Court should do something about it, dammitt.

If I need a sarcasm tag here, you wandered onto the wrong webpage.

[merrily]

22. LOL!

[sueh]

32. LOL! wish I could K & R your comment a thousand times!

[merrily]

33. I wish I could claim credit. I stole it from another DUer. I'd give him or her

credit, but I don't remember the screen name.

Please forgive me, brilliant poster who made that up.

[Larkspur]

7. Hillary is getting Obama'd by Bernie

to paraphrase Larry Wilmore of the Nightly Show.

[merrily]

23. If anything, she's getting Berned.

[roguevalley]

50. Hillary joked about her Snapchat acct saying those emails

Disappear by themselves. I am unaware that anything about that is funny. Tin ear she has

[TexasBushwhacker]

112. I thought the same thing

There may or may not be an issue about the e-mails, but to joke about it? That's just weird. What's next? Jokes about Bengazi? I'm not saying the accusations have any validity, but joking about them is just inappropriate.

[George II]

8. A few others spoke there, too...they weren't all there for Sanders.

[merrily]

24. No one was there for Sanders.

[cheapdate]

60. Who told you that?

(Or is that sarcasm?)

[merrily]

73. I just wanted to make George II happy.

And maybe spare him or her the trouble of having to try to keep trying to diminish Sanders. May as well do it in one swell foop.





You're a Clinton fan, right? Didn't it make you happy?


You're welcome.

[cheapdate]

86. I think there's something wrong with you.

[merrily]

87. Another mean post. tsk, tsk.

[cheapdate]

88. That reminds me of a story about a pot and a kettle...

[merrily]

90. I must need reminding because I don't remember being mean to you or to George II.

Or posting any ad hom insults to either of you.

[cheapdate]

92. See your post #73 and answer me this:

In that post you asked me a question. You asked me to confirm your proposition that I am a "fan" of Hillary Clinton.

What evidence led you to that conclusion? Your question was of the "When did you stop beating your wife?" variety, was it not?

For the record, as I've said many times before, Bernie Sanders has my vote in the primary.

[merrily]

94. What makes you think I know every post of yours?

Calling you a liar about your preferred candidate was nowhere in my thoughts when I replied to you.

Many others have posted support for Bernie whom I never believed and they have been announcing a "change" of heart; However, I don't recall having seen you post support for Bernie.

[cheapdate]

97. I asked you a question,

and I see you skipped right past it.

See your post #73. I've given you my objections to that post and you've me no reason to believe that 1) you have any glimmer of understanding of the reason for my objection, or 2) that any further discussion will benefit you or me.

I have other things to do.

[merrily]

98. Jaysus.

[George II]

75. No one said that, but there were a half-dozen candidates at the Fair the same day.

[merrily]

78. How mean! I said that. Well, I posted it, anyway.

We all know there were other candidates there that day, don't we?

[LiberalElite]

29. OTOH they didn't get up and leave when he got on the stage nt

[George II]

76. Have you ever been to an event like that? Have you seen photographs of the other candidates' crowds?

[LiberalElite]

79. I was to an Obama one once in 2008-

never been to any state fair.

[merrily]

89. Didn't you hear? They were waiting for the butter cow to speak.

[sabrina 1]

31. We know, Sanders cannot attract any crowds at all?

http://michaelholden.com/work/interactive/panoramic/bernie-sanders-los-angeles-august-2015

[mimi85]

58. Wow - that one made me dizzy!

Just amazing!

[BeanMusical]

96. That's obviously Photoshopped!1!

[Bjorn Against]

34. There were no speeches scheduled after Bernie's today

Lincoln Chaffee did speak a mere two and a half hours before Bernie today however so you might be right. I bet most of that crowd is made up of Chaffee fans who were so star struck by Chaffee's speech that they were frozen in place with their knees trembling in excitement for a Chaffee administration. This extreme excitement made them unable to walk away from the stage for the next two hours so Bernie ended up speaking to thousands of Chaffee fans.

Yes, that must be what happened because Bernie could never attract the kinds of crowds that Chaffee gets.

Edited to add: Rick Santorum spoke before Chaffee and a mere three hours before Bernie. It is likely that as he spoke a frothy mix flooded the fair grounds and it got stuck to people's feet. This acted like glue making the Santorum fans unable to walk away and they were stuck watching Bernie speak three hours later.

[George II]

36. It's the Iowa STATE FAIR! Lots of things to do there. There were 95,000 people there today....

I'm sure we'll wake up tomorrow and see headlines saying "95,000 show up to see Bernie Sanders"!

[Bjorn Against]

39. Yes, there were many other things the people in that crowd could have done

Yet they chose to gather around the stage to listen to Bernie speak.

[George II]

40. A few hundred according to the news report. That leaves maybe 94,500 doing other things.

[Bjorn Against]

43. That picture looks like a bit more than a few hundred

[George II]

44. Suit yourself, like I said by tomorrow morning it'll be that all 95,000 showed up to see him.

My bet is that more saw the butter cow.

[Bjorn Against]

45. I think you are the one suiting yourself if you want to pretend only a few hundred are in that photo

[sorechasm]

46. I can't remember the last time I waited 2 hours to see a Butter Cow.

Nice joust Bjorne Against! Love your Sarcasm.

[TheFarS1de]

69. Yep ....

time to pop down to the optometrist. I am having the same problem seeing more than a few hundred .

[neverforget]

62. Well you also said "8 or 9 thousand" in Portland and you were WAY off.

That was just the overflow crowd!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=506328

20,000 people???????
The place only seats 19,900 and the ENTIRE upper level is empty and lower level half empty.
Try maybe 8 or 9 thousand?

[Comrade Grumpy]

49. Don't you have anything better to do?

Really.

You just want to sit here and needle Sanders supporters. You do it day in, day out, like it's a little game for you. I understand; it's not your country.

[Duckhunter935]

51. It's all some have

Of course we all know the only polite ones here are for the anointed one who shall not be named or it is some kind of personal attack.

[George II]

54. Not my country? Just what do you mean by that?

[Comrade Grumpy]

91. For some reason, I think you're Canadian. My apologies if mistaken.

Still, the rest of my post holds.

[LiberalElite]

85. It's not just Bernie supporters who say he attracted a large crowd

we've finally been joined by the MSM.

[George II]

77. And just as many chose to gather around the stage to listen to the other candidates too, haven't....

...you seen any other photographs of the crowds?

[Bjorn Against]

80. By all accounts Bernie had the largest crowds

If you have pictures of a larger crowd present it.

[George II]

82. "all accounts"?

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/pages/interactives/iowa-state-fair-political-soapbox/

http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/08/13/2016-candidates-hit-the-soapbox-at-the-iowa-state-fair/

You can do the head count.

[Bjorn Against]

83. The photos I see at the second link are much smaller crowds than Bernie's

The first link is really slow to load, but if you can name me a candidate that had bigger crowds than Bernie I will look up pictures.

[sabrina 1]

61. Saw it on CSpan, those were Bernie's crowds, you could see the Bernie posters all across

the crowds. Then he walked to another part of the fair, followed by tons of people AND media. He then went into what looked like a convention center, followed again by large crowds, some who were already inside cheering and he signed autographs and chatted some more with the people there.

Then he left to try to get some food, again he was followed by large crowds and a lot of media.

No doubt he had a very large crowd of supporters there.

[George II]

81. And there were just as many there for the other speakers earlier and they all had...

....their candidates' signs. Did you watch O'Malley speak the day before? Jim Webb? Huckabee, Santorum, Bush?

So, you saw him walking around the fair, "followed by tons of people AND media", signing autographs, trying to get food, and followed by "a lot of media"? You saw that (and I saw some of that too)

I thought the complaint was that the media wasn't paying attention to him! Which is it?

The Iowa State Fair doesn't revolve around Bernie Sanders.

[cali]

99. fail. numerous reporters confirm he had the largest crowd. now maybe if hill

had done the soapbox she would have had a bigger crowd, but she didn't

[rhett o rick]

37. LOL, and you know who they came to see? Really? nm

[Bjorn Against]

41. There were only three people scheduled to speak today

11:00 - Rick Santorum
11:30 - Lincoln Chaffee
2:00 - Bernie Sanders

Obviously the Chaffee and Santorum fans were so excited they were unable to leave the stage area for a few hours after their candidates spoke.

[Duckhunter935]

53. I am sure that is what happened

Those were the ones that were not afraid to take to the soap box.

[George II]

55. Just as much as many in this discussion knows who they WENT to see (not "came", unless you're there)

[cali]

71. bwahaha. your posts embody bitterness. love it.

[LiberalElite]

113. O Geoorge....we now have a figure :)

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/31898-bernie-takes-on-the-media

You were only off by 3/4 of the total who WERE there

[L0oniX]

9. K & R

[Phlem]

10. K&R!

[tavalon]

14. Well, since they took a tight shot (accidental I'm sure)

The best guess I could make would be 20 hundreds, but it's probably more.

[Fred Sanders]

16. Well done, Bernie! Racist Birther Trump deserves mockery, no more oxygen.

[Michigan-Arizona]

18. K&R n/t

[cantbeserious]

21. Go Bernie Go

eom

[Duval]

28. Don't ya' just love it?

Thanks for the post, Omaha Steve. I came to DU looking for news of Bernie.

[n2doc]

35. Oh noes! Bernie is part of the Mob! Will the FBI Investigate?

[november3rd]

38. CNN, Fox & MSNBC All Weekend

Been following the race in Iowa coverage on the major news channels.

Bernie is virtually blacked out all weekend. You wouldn't even know he's running because it's Trump Trump Trump all the time, with a good measure of Climton thrown in.

[George II]

42. I've had CNN on all day in the background - Sanders was covered more than any of them.

Of course they showed some of Trump and Clinton too, so that's not good enough for some Sanders followers.

[wendylaroux]

56. awesome! thanks george! nt

[Duckhunter935]

57. That not even close to being true

They covered Trump and Hillary live and in depth. When Bernie was scheduled to speak on came caught on camera and I did not see anything on CNN. If you are going to post, please at least post something close to the facts and not outright lies.

[Indepatriot]

107. Hillary probably would have garned more coverage if she'd chosen to address the crowd

from the Soapbox rather than just taking questions from the press..... yet another example of why she's such a lousy campaigner. Seriously, how in the hell do you NOT address the crowd from the Soapbox at the freakin' Iowa State Fair?!!!!! This is why she's not connecting with the people. She JUST DOESN'T GET IT.

[AzDar]

47. Bernie!!

[senz]

64. So many people love Bernie and I hope he's lovin' every single minute of it.

And I hope his wife is making sure he's eating well and getting enough sleep. Bernie's a treasure and we're lucky to be here this summer watching it all unfold.

Thanks Omaha Steve for the nice photo and report.

[Stardust]

68. We really are lucky, aren't we? Nice post, and great OP, OS! eom

[MuseRider]

84. Great post!

I feel the same way. That and nice and relaxed watching him unfold his platform. It may not be quick enough for some people, that is understandable, but on the whole I can't imagine that most will be satisfied and excited when he gets there.

Usually I highly question my trust of a political figure. I did, I looked all over and read as much as I could. I trust what he says and why he is doing this the way he is. It is a great feeling and we are very lucky!

[BeanMusical]

95. "Usually I highly question my trust of a political figure."

Same here.

[MuseRider]

101. Love that!

It kinda makes me feel creepy or something. I am not a fan but a supporter but it does make me feel a little odd.

Sure there are things I wish he would do but I see them all included and it just works that way for me because I know they are there and they will come out when he is good and ready to present them.

I shake my head all the time wondering about it. I don't even worry he is going to make me feel like a fool. Maybe I am just too old, lol!

[DiehardLiberal]

65. I watched the Live Stream and the camera angle was the crowd in front of him. Thousands listening...

It wasn't Portland ( I was there) but it was a large crowd - make no mistake about it. Falling in love with this guy and the possibilities!

[Strelnikov_]

72. I was there, it was at least a couple of thousand, if not more n/t

[SoLeftIAmRight]

70. That is a lot to spend to make Bernie President

I will thank him

[4dsc]

74. I was this event and the crowds were huge

compared to every other candidate who is not afraid to speak here(Hillary and Trump come to mind because they won't speak here). All ages of people too from the young to the older folks like me.

[timmymoff]

93. Boone, Iowa

I have rarely posted on DU but feel it is time. I drove six hours to see Bernie at the town hall meeting in Boone, Iowa. They state there was 600 People there and I would agree they were close. They were taking roll in a way getting names of people to contact later so their number could be correct I would've guessed 450. I have photographs and footage, but am not very skilled as to how to post it. I only noticed one other car from out of state and that person had a press pass. The demographics were probably more closely related to the geography of Boone Co. All ages were there. I truly enjoyed seeing this and am energized. I love being talked to like an adult, no promises yet, but issue awareness. Bernie is the man!

[WillyT]

100. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[lewebley3]

102. Hillary is the most populist: She is way a head of Sanders

[Mona]

103. CNN this morning...

Actually acknowledged the fact that Bernie is not getting the press he should, said he had crowds at the fair in larger amounts than anyone.

...Then they went on to talk about trump and hillary.

[4dsc]

106. Local news isn't reporting about the crowds either

We have a team of people here who are looking into every local event to check on the coverage Bernie gets and its lacking. I have written several local organizations to express my thoughts about not covering Bernie events like they do Hillary or Trump.

[Mona]

110. disappointed the lack of coverage is that deep :( nm

N/t

[DirkGently]

105. Wow. n/t

[trillion]

108. Absolutely Awesome. Go Bernie!!!

[joshcryer]

109. Clinton isn't going to get away with the slow burn.

She's going to have to start rallying. The people don't care for the roundtable format where she keeps herself inaccessable.

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

111. The media totally ingnores him

I saw a small clip and it looked like only a few supporters but that pic tells a different story. Why is Trump getting so much attention while Bernie is being ignored?