Bernie Sanders entertains as he inspires in Modesto
That’s quite some road show Bernie Sanders brought to town, with a movie star, live music, cheering, booing, comedy and even a little bit of drama.
The Vermont independent – still trying to keep Hillary Clinton from achieving her presidential destiny – took Modesto by storm Thursday. The 3,000 who sardined into the giant (air-conditioned, thank God) pavilion at Modesto Centre Plaza were entertained, informed, rocked and sent home rolling. They generated deafening roars and cascades of boos at the mere mention of Donald Trump. To a lesser degree, Hillary Clinton, Wall Street bankers, big drug companies and other villains got the same treatment.
Sanders is the first presidential candidate since John McCain in 2007 to visit Modesto. But this was no quiet breakfast meeting; this was an event. Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon introduced him; a member of Woody Guthrie’s family sang for him, and the star of the show didn’t disappoint. The cantankerous old dude with the fly-away hair made people care about politics.
“All of you know there is a very important primary coming up on Tuesday,” he deadpanned.
“If the turnout is high, we’re going to win that primary,” he said as the roar arose.
“If the turnout is very high, we’re going to win with huge numbers” – and the roar crescendoed. But he wasn’t finished. “We’re going to have the largest voter turnout in Democratic California primary history!”
Then the crowd went nuts.
No doubt this was Sanders’ typical speech, one he gives three or four times a day. He hit all the applause lines – making Wall Street pay a speculation tax to fund free public-college education; health care as a right, not a privilege; a woman’s right to choose; reclassifying marijuana as less threatening; investing more in education than incarceration. More.
The few moments of drama came early, provided by a couple of protesters not from this area. They climbed onto a table and unfurled a professionally done sign (something about animal rights). The crowd was annoyed. Do you have to crash our party?
But Modestans didn’t over-react, shake their fists or throw elbows. Instead they raised an incredible roar of: BER-NIE, BER-NIE, BER-NIE.
After the protesters were gone, Sanders resumed, “As I was saying...”
He noted his travels across California (an itinerary far more impressive than that of our state’s leading senatorial candidates). But he still has something to learn.
Sanders began speaking about “rural poverty,” mentioning West Virginia, when a tiny voice near the back called out, “It’s here.”
He didn’t hear her. We wish he had. In the midst of the richest state in the richest nation in the world, our valley has some of the nation’s most impoverished people.
Regardless, Sanders appears to have heart for poor people – and it showed. “Poverty in America is not just not having a flat-screen,” he said. “Poverty ... (can be) a death sentence.”
Without some sort of strange political warp, the nomination is beyond his reach. Yet, to the thousands who came to hear and cheer him, such insurmountable odds appeared not to matter. It mattered more that he brought his last-hope, final-pitch, win-or-go-home campaign to Modesto.
But maybe the pundits and talking heads who follow him around and dissect campaigns from studios in New York in Washington are missing something. That might be the point.
“A truly great country is a country that provides well for its poorest citizens,” he told the crowd. “We have to change our national priorities.”
Maybe this isn’t as much about winning as it is about inspiration and transformation.
This story was originally published June 2, 2016 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Bernie Sanders entertains as he inspires in Modesto."