In two appearances in recent days, in Washington State and Oregon, Bernie Sanders Drew massive crowds of supporters that were larger—for these two speeches alone—-than the combined crowds of every Republican and Democrat running for president added together over the entire weekend. First, on Saturday night, a spectacular crowd of 15,000 people turned out for a Sanders rally at the Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle. And then, on Sunday, Sanders roused a humongous crowd at the Moda Center in Portland, estimated in The Oregonian to be 28,000.
For serious analysts of politics the summer belongs to Sanders—and no other candidate can come even close to the size of his crowds or the clarity, passion and idealism of his message. The Republican campaign has become a reality television show while the Sanders campaign offers the reality of a surging movement of progressive politics, progressive organization and progressive inspiration that is transforming American politics under the radar of the national political media.
Remember where you heard it first: When the next quarterly campaign finance reports are released in October the political world will be shocked by the breathtaking increase in small donor money to the Sanders campaign.
If the major media and political worlds were surprised by the summer surge in support for Sanders, the increasingly huge crowds for his campaign appearances and his impressive small donor numbers in the past, they will be shocked and stunned by the humongous surge in small donors to Sanders that will be announced for the current quarter.
Everything happens for a reason, and the reason for the Sanders crowds and small donor surge is this: The coming political revolution that is caused by the explosion of social media combined with the waves of progressive grassroots enthusiasm and action that is widely ignored and disrespected by old-style political pundits opining on old-style broadcast media but is exploding throughout the social media world that is powerfully underestimated by those who meet the press and face the nation.
This is why I was one of the first to predict that Mr. Sanders has a very strong chance of achieving an outright victory in the Iowa Democratic caucus. Look at the Sanders Facebook page; count the crowds tomorrow from events promoted on his Facebook page today; watch the huge small donor surge that will stun the political world in October; and imagine the turnout in Iowa and other caucus states when the Sanders Facebook page posts the addresses of the caucus meetings and how, when Sanders builds it, they will come.
Fox News may be the Babe Ruth of cable television politics, but is a small potatoes minor leaguer compared to the progressive equivalent of the invasion of Normandy by the young people and liberals and progressives and idealists who are storming the beaches of American politics like tens of millions of little liberal Koch brothers who want to take America back from corruptions of big money and the stench of politics as usual and the arrogance and insiderism of political oligarchs and their mouthpieces and hired help.
The gigantic rise in crowds is a Bernie Sanders shocker that remains unnoticed by the bastions of old media and old politics, but the probable humongous surge in Bernie Sanders small donors that will be revealed in October could be a Mt. Vesuvius earthquake event that will make today’s political media freak show coverage a distant memory.
Anyone want to take a guess what that quarter number going to be?
That's how we get the fight to the old guard. Gotta throw these fools a curve ball, aint going down this road no longer.
