NEW YORK TIMES: …At a campaign rally in Vermont on Tuesday and at three events in New Hampshire, including a town hall-style gathering in Portsmouth that drew roughly 600 people, older voters made up a sizable minority of the crowds.
Their visibility has been striking because Mr. Sanders’s unabashedly progressive message, calling for a “political revolution” to tax the rich and redistribute income, often appeals to idealistic young Americans who do not pay much in taxes. Even some of these older voters said they were a little surprised to be responding to the fiery, man-the-barricades exhortations of Mr. Sanders. But if young people and African-Americans identified with Barack Obama during his presidential run in 2008, older Americans said that Mr. Sanders had struck a deeply personal chord with them…
Older Americans have long been a crucial voting bloc for presidential candidates, especially in states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that have early nominating contests. But Mr. Obama’s winning coalition of voters in 2008 and 2012 emphasized other demographics and certain states, with less focus on the needs of older Americans beyond the importance of Social Security and Medicare… (more)
EDITOR: To borrow a line from Ronald Reagan re Walter Mondale, “Despite his comparative youth…” Sanders represents core values of the past Democrat Party before Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s (to a lesser extent) moved to the center of the political spectrum.
We think that many liberals will praise and make small donations to Sanders and make a point by even voting for him in the primaries, but then contribute, work and vote for Hillary Clinton in November, 2016.
