The Comeback Kid: The Revolution Begins in Iowa

“9 months ago we came to this beautiful state, we had no money, no organization and were taking on the most powerful political organization in America.” 

As I write this, Iowa is waiting for the last delegate numbers on the Democratic caucus to come in. Huckabee and O’Malley have closed up shop and gone home, suspending their campaigns. Fiorina didn’t even show up for her own party.  The Donald, is coming in second place with Rubio a close third – Cruz accepting his victory with a speech on killing Muslims. These are weird times to be alive and watching politics.

Bernie Sanders is not a man to smile often. Maybe there’s a smirk that cuts through his grimace when he makes a particularly good point, but smiling? I haven’t seen it. He’s a guy, like me that is genuinely concerned, no, genuinely pissed the f**k off about what’s happening to America. Not in some ‘let’s make America great again’ sort of way. Sanders is no snake oil-salesman when it comes to democracy, he means what he’s selling.

So when I turned on C-Span to watch Sanders Iowa caucus speech, I found it surprising to see him grinning ear to ear, like he had just heard that the ghost of Eugene Debs had liked his facebook page. Without the final numbers in, he neither declared victory, or defeat. His speech was one that admittedly brought some tears to the eyes of this professional political cynic. It was as eloquent as Obama’s famous 2004 convention speech – but it was the focused, angry and planned speech that Sanders needed to give.

If you missed the speech, it’s the summary of why Bernie is important in 2016.

He talked about the high incarceration rate of minorities in American prisons, but nothing for the Wall Street criminals that brought our country to its knees. “We will end the disgrace of having more people in jail than any other country”

He hit the top one tenth of the one percent who aren’t paying their fair share of taxes.  “We are going to impose a tax on wall street speculation.” and “Now it’s wall streets time to help out the middle class.”

He discussed why his campaign was different. “We have received 3.5 million individual contributions… an average contribution of $27 dollars.” “We are the only candidate on the democratic side, with-out a super PAC.”

He said what Hillary refuses to say – “Yes I believe that healthcare is a right, not a privilege”

And of course he finished with “So are you guys ready for a radical idea? Well so is America.”

[quotes are written as quickly as I heard them live, so apologies if I am off by a word or two]

Watch the speech below.

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