Bernie Sanders visits Boston for three sold-out events Friday
MARCH 30, 2017
Excerpts:
“The guy, who is not even a Democrat, is being treated like a rock star in deep-blue Kennedy Massachusetts, and it’s because he is a rock star,” said Erin O’Brien, chairwoman of the political science department at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “It speaks to the vacuum that Hillary Clinton left. She never had the same kind of passionate support that Bernie Sanders had.”
The Friday night rally, to champion causes such as criminal justice reform, immigrants’ rights, and wage inequality, does something else, political scientists say. It helps Warren as she gears up for reelection in 2018, which at least one recent survey shows might not be a cake-walk. A poll released in January by WBUR-FM showed that 46 percent of respondents said it was time to “give someone else a chance” when asked if Warren deserved to retain her seat. About 44 percent of voters said that Warren should get another term.
“Sanders is surely invested in helping Warren win reelection,” David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College, said in an e-mail. Hopkins called Sanders a “kindred spirit in the Senate” for Warren. If she wins reelection in 2018, Warren becomes a potential presidential candidate in 2020, he said.
“If she does run, she would likely pattern her presidential campaign after Sanders’ 2016 candidacy and seek to inherit the faction of Democrats who supported Sanders last year,” he wrote.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/30/bernie-sanders-visits-friday-for-three-sold-out-events/IO6Th8bOPQilOjE8VPfhtI/story.html