Discussion for article #240449
I wonder how Sanders pulled this off? Liberty is a private, very conservative Christian “University.” The University is not known for open minded thinking.
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To appear non-partisan, they do, upon occasion, invite people from the other side of the aisle to give speeches. Most do not accept. Bernie accepted their invitation.
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Even with all the derp. Fundies have bills too.
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They have the largest arena|auditorium in the 'burg, and it is used by a wide range of outside groups. Further, they are one of the largest recipients of Fed Gov subsidy by way of student loans out there, and I’m sure they do not want to appear any more partisan than they are (the administration of LU is clearly rabidly partisan). He’s taking it to unusual territory for sure, and I am surprised Lynchburg College didn’t host him instead, but I can imagine there are plenty of LU students who would be interested, and I’m sure admission is open.
EDIT: I wish I could have gone to this or to see him in Manassas today.
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Thank you very much for this information
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Liberty would love to help derail the Clinton juggernaut. They would much rather have a conservative Republican run against Bernie.
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I’m watching Bernie now. He gets credit for going into the belly of the beast. But seriously, much as l like and respect him, I do not see him delivering a SOTU address. If by some miracle he is nominated, the GOP will have a field day destroying him. This is a center/right, occasionally center/left country. Bernie is a left/left ideologue. Not gonna happen.
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Wasn’t there a Jewish Socialist who lived some time ago that Christians are supposed to follow?
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I think he’s going down the wrong demographic highway considering who he needs to woo to get an improbable upset of HRC.
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Who let the old Jew in here?!
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Bernie going to Liberty demonstrates a level of courage Clinton has yet to show. While Clinton stays cloistered or speaks to friendly audiences, Bernie shows he’s not afraid to take on some real opposition.
Yeah, I know Clinton was “dodging bullets leaving the aircraft” at some point, or so she says.
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I saw him Saturday night in Rock Hill SC at Winthrop University. It was his 3rd stop of the day.Place was packed with about 4,000 people. Great crowd and Bernie was amazing. How anyone his age (he’s got me by three yrs) can stand up there for an hour and cover all the bases is amazing.
Cornel West got the crowd going with an intro. Bernie is not overwhelming but keeps the energy up and for an hour or so touched on every political point. Biggest applause for (paraphrasing) “I don’t have a Super Pac”, “I don’t take money from WS and corporations - and I don’t want their money”. Call it senior swag if you will. His commitment is real and refreshing.
Mixed bag. Guy sitting in front of me, white guy, about 35 yo with wife, was wearing a tee shirt and on his bicep had a Don’t Tread On Me snake tattoo. Go figure.
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I’d like to see the speech, Unfortunately NBC either didn’t post the video after the event, or made it impossible to find. Kind of typical of the slights Bernie Sanders gets from the media.
Edit: Found it at http://www.c-span.org/video/?328079-1/senator-bernie-sanders-ivt-remarks-liberty-university
(You can skip about 15 minutes of Liberty-U propaganda, speech starts at about 15:50. There is also a long gap early in the video which might make you think the feed is hung up, it can be skipped.)
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Just watching the Q&A on the Sanders feed here. I wonder if evangelicals know that their sincerity comes off as incredibly insincere. Not sure what is off-putting about their mannerisms and earnestness, but it comes across as really fakey. Sorry, just an observation I’ve made whenever I happen across these people. I am just never convinced these people are being sincere.
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It’s been a painful reminder of why the country is where it’s at to read comments here, and hear TV talking heads, and hear the opinions of DC “thought leaders” about Sanders. He’s running on the Democratic platform. Obama has been labeled a socialist, foreigner, and/or enemy of Christianity by virtually every Republican with access to a microphone. It’s embedded in the opposition to him at every turn. How would Sanders be in a worse electoral position than our easily-reelected president? Or than HRC with the deeply embedded Clinton skepticism of maybe 35% of this country? The answer is, he wouldn’t be.
This is the defeatism of those who talk like liberals but find numerous reasons not to support candidates who are from the democratic wing of the Democratic Party (thank you, Paul Wellstone, a successfully reelected progressive liberal). I’ve said I expect to end up voting for her, but HRC hedges instead of supporting what most Americans have responding to polling by saying they believe. Sanders has what people want. HRC is playing it how this game has been played in the past: many liberals will be persuaded that the time is not now, that their outspoken advocates can’t win, that being marginally better than the opposition can be a winning position. So it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy if she prevails. And we’ll wait for Warren. Or whomever.
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Found it from TPM link but…only the ending prayer followed by audience departing. Hope Bernie’s campaign accesses and provides the video.
Edit:Thanks for the c-span link
I want to beat Republicans first and vote for a liberal second so if voting for the more liberal candidate sets up a GOP win, I’m voting for the more conservative liberal. It’s not defeatism, it’s playing to win by a point, rather than throwing a hail mary and hoping to score.
Thank you, tomanjeri, for demonstrating my point exactly.
You’ve hit on the exact problem Bernie is facing, a lack of support from African Americans. Excerpt from Charles Blow’s Op-Ed
An August Gallup Poll found that Hillary Clinton’s favorability among African-Americans was 80 percent, while Sanders’s was 23 percent. Two-thirds of blacks were unfamiliar with Sanders. This could pose a problem after the contests in overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire, where he has surged to tie or best Clinton, give way to contests in Southern states with much more sizable black populations.
55 percent of South Carolina Democratic primary voters were black in 2008. Yet current polls show Clinton with a massive lead over Sanders in the state