Bernie Sanders Revisits Portland, But He Faces More Competition Than In The 2016 Campaign

[TexasTowelie]

There's been a recent surge in Democratic presidential candidates visiting Maine, as New Jersey U.S. Sen. Cory Booker announced Tuesday that he'll campaign in Portland on Saturday. The flurry of campaign stops — three in a little over a week — illustrate a new electoral landscape for independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who dominated the Democratic caucuses in Maine in 2016. Sanders on Sunday drew a sellout crowd for a rally at the State Theatre in Portland, but his candidacy and his supporters are confronting a new political dynamic that the progressive firebrand from Vermont helped create.

Sanders is accustomed to drawing big crowds in Maine, and he cruised to a dominating win in Maine’s Democratic caucuses three years ago. But the electoral landscape has changed. Sanders is competing with a large field of Democratic presidential hopefuls, and some of them have a adopted portions of his populist platform. That’s created a dilemma for some of his ardent supporters, who above all else, want to defeat President Donald Trump.

Sanders began his rally at the State Theatre the same way he has so many others here in Maine and other states.

Unlike other politicians, Sanders made no attempt to ingratiate himself with the crowd with trite comments about lobster or the rocky coastline. Instead, he launched directly into his hallmark us-against-them battle cry.

Read more: https://www.mainepublic.org/post/bernie-sanders-revisits-portland-he-faces-more-competition-2016-campaign

[The Mouth]

1. Say what you will about Bernie

But does anyone think that the candidates this election would be, on average, anywhere nearly as far to the left if he hadn't have made a strong run in 16? Details be damned, he showed there were a lot more people who would vote for a proudly progressive candidate than the industry professionals anywhere along the spectrum would have admitted?

I mean everything else aside, if a Jewish Socialist (well, technically more of a democratic socialist, but he didn't shrink or freak out with regard to the lable 'socialist') hadn't have gotten tens of millions of votes and won multiple states in the primary, do you really think Harris and Warren and the others would be as open to professing progressive platforms?

[Lucky Luciano]

2. Warren absolutely would...the others not so much. nt

[George II]

3. Not at all.