Sanders draws a crowd

POST FALLS - Between 100 and 150 local U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters turned out Wednesday to begin a nationwide grassroots campaign for the Democratic presidential primaries next spring.

The gathering, organized by Coeur d'Alene resident Karen Ball, was part of a nationwide kickoff meeting that connected 3,500 locations online and drew more than 100,000 attendees.

Within minutes of starting the broadcast, the Bernie Sanders Twitter page was trending with photos of small and large gatherings across the country.

There were four event locations in Spokane that reached capacity two weeks ago and the Post Falls event did last week, according to Kristi Reed Johnson, chair of the Democrats 5th Legislative District.

Spokane Valley resident Matt Eshelman, who has been a longtime Sanders fan, said he tried to get a spot in one of the Spokane locations, but they filled up as soon as they were announced so he signed up immediately for the Post Falls event as soon as heard about it.

"The Spokane events were all full," said Eshelman, who recently moved to North Idaho from Illinois before moving to Spokane. "I saw that there was one over in Idaho and I was surprised because North Idaho is a pretty conservative area."

Eshelman said he was glad Ball organized the event because he definitely plans to get involved in the grassroots movement.

Ball, who moved from Vermont to North Idaho in January, said she was wondering if she could connect locally with people who shared her political views, so she went online and saw the Sanders campaign was hosting meetings all over the country.

"So I thought I would host one and maybe 10 or 15 people would sign up and we could have a barbecue or something," she said. "But when I woke up in the morning there were already 60 people signed up."

She even attracted a friend of Bernie Sanders' son. Greg Sweierz, of Post Falls, met Dave Sanders at the 1989 New England Cup Snowboard Series and they have been friends ever since.

He said Dave is the CEO of a snowboard company in Vermont, but they still spend time together now and then.

"He was just with us down at our place at Lake Tahoe," he said, adding he has accompanied Dave to visit Sen. Sanders in Washington, D.C. He was excited to hear that Sanders was going to make a run for the presidency.

Ball said she started shopping for larger venues at libraries and places like that, but nobody was sure they had the technology to stream the event live on Wednesday night. Finally she found Timber Gastro Pub in Post Falls, which was able to accommodate the their needs.

"They gave us this whole side of the restaurant with three TVs," she said, as the crowd of supporters showed up to stake out tables. "But we had to limit it to 150 people, and we actually had to start turning people away."

Ball said Sanders' campaign headquarters contacted her several times asking if she could find and even larger venue, but she couldn't find one that could meet her needs. She said she could have had doubled the turnout if she had.

She was surprised by the demand, but she understands the appeal.

Ball said Sanders is appealing to people like her because he believes "people who need to be taxed, need to be taxed."

Fearmongering over the term "socialist" doesn't scare her away from that belief.

"The socialism thing isn't as bad as what some people would have you believe," she said, adding some are using the term as a "scary thing."

Johnson agreed, saying Sanders has had a consistent message for the past 25 years and she believes the Independent senator from Vermont is the best candidate for the Democrats during this presidential election cycle.

"Don't get me wrong, I like Hillary Clinton, but she is not the best candidate," Johnson said, joking that she should know because of her own failed attempts at elected office.

She said she started out this season supporting Elizabeth Warren, because Johnson felt she was actually trying to address some of the financial issues that caused the recession in 2008, but the party was moving toward Clinton and then Sanders began making his splash in the political pond.

Working in the fraud department of a bank, Johnson said she admires Sanders' approach to rein in the corporate control of the economy and now politics in general.

Sanders was speaking live from Cincinnati and told supporters many things that haven't drawn much applause in North Idaho for a couple decades, but his comment drew raucous applause Wednesday night.

Sanders' message is the rich 10 percent of the country don't pay their fair share of taxes, while the other 90 percent have been struggling on "starvation" wages.

"Enough is enough," Sanders stated repeatedly as introduced each plank of his platform. "We have got to reverse the decline of the middle class over the past 40 years."

He said people are now working two or three jobs just to survive in today's economy.

He said the $7.25 an hour minimum wage is a "starvation wage," and the country need to work toward a $15 an hour minimum wage over the next few years.

He said unemployment is way down, and jail populations are the highest in the world, which he believes is tied directly to the economy.

He wants all publicly funded colleges and universities to be tuition-free, which he believes would also create an incentive for children to work harder to get into college.

"We are turning our backs on our young people," he said.

He said it is wrong that student loans are paid back at 7-8 percent interest rates when home mortgages can be had for 2-3 percent.

He said our nation is quickly becoming an oligarchy, and called for publicly funded elections, saying, "You shouldn't have to beg wealthy people for contributions to run for office."

Sanders has stances on immigration, health care, climate change and institutionalized racism as well, but mostly he wanted to let supporters know that there is no way any president can turn the country around without a grassroots movement to effect that change.

"The only way we will win this is if we pull together," Sanders said. "Now is the time to transition America."

According to a CNN poll on Monday, Sanders was polling higher than the three frontrunners in the Republican presidential primary.