Bernie Sanders Hosts Nationwide Simulcast That Draws Crowd In Oskaloosa
People interested in learning more about Democrat Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders participated in a video town-hall meeting on Wednesday night.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – It was a first of its sort, a simulcast town hall meeting with a presidential candidate.
Nearly 3 dozen people interested in learning more about Bernie Sanders came to Smokey Row on Wednesday, July 29th.
Each of the nearly 3,500 sites around the country hosted over 100,000 supporters nationwide.
Locally, Namoi Cochran hosted the event, which was held at Smokey Row. The University of Iowa student, and local graduate of Oskaloosa High School, says that she is really excited about Sanders campaign and “to make this campaign work, we need a lot of people to back us up”.
“I was so excited to have the opportunity to get a lot of people together and make it happen,” says Cochran, who has gotten her information on Sanders from the campaign website and other online resources. “He’s really connecting with our younger people.”
U.S. Senator Sanders has been the biggest challenger so far, on the Democratic ticket, for former First Lady and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. For Cochran, the attraction is Sanders desire to make college more affordable. She says that Sanders plan for helping to fund the college tuition relief for students is “to kind of take that away from the wealthy. I think he has a really solid plan for that, and I would love to be able to live the rest of my life without a ton of debt.”
Sanders is a self-described Democratic socialist. Sanders is a member of Congress who doesn’t shy away from the term socialist, when many of his colleagues prefer to use ‘progressive’. Sanders has no problem stating that he is no supporter of The Soviet Union, but instead looks at socialism much like countries such as Denmark does. When asked on ABC’s “This Week”, Sanders said, “In those countries, health care is the right of all people. And in those countries, college education, graduate school is free. In those countries, retirement benefits, childcare are stronger than in the United States of America. And in those countries, by and large, government works for ordinary people and the middle class, rather than, as is the case right now in our country, for the billionaire class.”
Cochran said that Sanders being a socialist, in the context of what he describes, is fine with her. “I don’t think it’s anything to be scared of. I think socialist is kind of a dirty word. It’s more important to focus on the details of his plans.”
During his video speech, Sanders said, “The American people are saying loudly and clearly: Enough is enough… Our government belongs to all of us and not just a handful of billionaires.”
Cochran agrees that Sanders wants to close the income gap, “he wants to make it a fair playing field.”
When it comes to a Democrat front runner, Cochran says that she was a huge Hillary fan “before I heard about Bernie Sanders,” and said she will still vote for Clinton if Sanders isn’t the Democrat nominee.
