Is there any reason to doubt Bernie Sanders was a civil rights activist back in the day?

[Bread and Circus]

Irregardless who is in what photo or who was on whichever bridge in 1968, is there any reason to actually doubt Bernie Sanders was a civil rights activist back in the day?

[thereismore]

1. Regardless of your use of a non-existent word, there is no reason to doubt it. nt

[PoliticAverse]

5. You need to embiggen your vocabulary. It's a cromulent word...

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless

[MisterP]

15. it's become cromulent with use

[Bread and Circus]

18. I think it is a word. Funny though...it seems like a double negative when you think about it.

[elleng]

2. No.

For information, Bernie Sanders' Early political activism:

'While at the University of Chicago, Sanders joined the Young People's Socialist League, the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party of America, and was active in the Civil Rights Movement as a student organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In January 1962, Sanders led a rally at the University of Chicago administration building to protest university president George Wells Beadle's segregated campus housing policy. "We feel it is an intolerable situation when Negro and white students of the university cannot live together in university-owned apartments," Sanders said at the protest. Sanders and 32 other students then entered the building and camped outside the president's office, performing the first civil rights sit-in in Chicago history. After weeks of sit-ins, Beadle and the university formed a commission to investigate discrimination. He once spent a day putting up fliers protesting against police brutality, only to eventually notice that a Chicago police car was shadowing him and taking them all down.

Sanders attended the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. That summer, he was convicted of resisting arrest during a demonstration against segregation in Chicago's public schools and was fined $25.

In addition to his civil rights activism during the 1960s and 1970s, Sanders was active in several peace and antiwar movements. He was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Student Peace Union while attending the University of Chicago. Sanders applied for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War; his application was eventually turned down, by which point he was too old to be drafted. Although he opposed the war, Sanders never placed any blame on those who fought and has been a strong supporter of veterans' benefits.

Liberty Union campaigns
Sanders began his political career in 1971 as a member of the Liberty Union Party, which originated in the anti-war movement and the People's Party. He ran as the Liberty Union candidate for governor of Vermont in 1972 and 1976 and as a candidate for U.S. senator in 1972 and 1974. In the 1974 Senatorial race, Sanders finished third (5,901 votes; 4.1%) behind the victor, 33-year-old Chittenden County State's Attorney Patrick Leahy (D, VI; 70,629 votes; 49.4%), and two-term incumbent U.S. Representative Dick Mallary (R; 66,223 votes; 46.3%).

The 1976 campaign proved to be the zenith of Liberty Union's influence, with Sanders collecting 11,000 votes for Governor and the party forcing the races for Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State to be decided by the state legislature when its vote total prevented either the Republican or Democratic candidates for those offices from garnering a majority of votes. The campaign drained the finances and energy of the Liberty Union, however, and in October 1977 — less than a year after the conclusion of the 1976 campaign — Sanders and the Liberty Union candidate for Attorney General, Nancy Kaufman, announced their retirement from the party.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

[livetohike]

3. No. This is getting crazy. John Lewis probably did not meet him

back in the day, or if he had met him, it may have been a brief encounter. Lots if people were active in various movements then.

[dchill]

4. I believe that depends on who you support

[Deny and Shred]

6. Of course there is a reason

The truth makes Sec. Clinton look bad. She wasn't part of that movement. She had, let's say, other priorities.

This is her campaign playing to the low info voter. A cheap attempt at "look, the squeaky clean guy is full of sh!t too." A cheap attempt to make THAT the first thing many voters hear. Many people haven't paid much attention yet, but are starting to tune in.

Bush's campaign in 2000 showed that this sort of thing can gain traction in SC, unfortunately.

[bigwillq]

7. No (nt)

[ladjf]

8. None what so ever. nt

[Hoyt]

9. I'm a Clinton supporter, but I have no reason to question it. The only thing I need to mention

is that giving accolades to Sanders does not change my utmost respect for those like Lewis, King, Bond, Evers, Parks, etc., who sacrificed a heck of a lot more.

I also think Clinton Civil Rights history is deserving of praise.

[Kalidurga]

10. But it was him. I didn't care before this actual proof, now it's just lying to say it wasn't him.

[Bread and Circus]

14. Well...there's that.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. Yes of course- sowing doubt and confusion

sure beats discussing programs and policies when you have neither.

[ReasonableToo]

12. Yes. A very good reason.

The optics of the two photos side-by-side are highly inconvenient to say the least. Photo one: Bernie leading civil rights protests in the early 60's. Photo two: Clinton as a Goldwater Girl in the early 60's.

If the Swiftboating efforts can make Bernie's photo a liability, it can't be used to communicate objectively and convincingly with POC in advance of upcoming primaries/caucuses.

[2pooped2pop]

13. I am fairly certain that Bernie planted this evidence back in the 60's for when he ran for president

Decades later. It's just like when Obama had his birth announcement put into the papers to make us believe that he was really born here, decades later.

[PonyUp]

16. Maybe he had a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor in a DeLorean and went back in time. n/t

[2pooped2pop]

20. That is another possibility. n/t

[uponit7771]

17. Of course, just like Hillary was a progressive now right? I mean, whats good for the goose is good

... for the Sanders... or ganders

[Aerows]

19. Yes, because

professional shit-stirrers that are on the side of Hillary Clinton want to make it a huge issue, which it isn't. The Clinton campaign is grasping at straws.

She can't win on issues, even when she attempts to adopt Bernie's platform. The mark of a bad politician is when they point to their opposition and say "I agree with you, but people should vote for me over you despite the fact that it was you who thought of this."

[GreatGazoo]

21. Likely Team Clinton is looking at polls and they see a big gap on credibility

They can't move HRC's number up so they are trying to take Bernie's number down. They tried it with the "also took Wall St money" BS and now with Photo-gate. Disgusting.

Just as there are ample pictures of Sanders at Sit Ins, the record is clear on HRC as a Young Republican supporting Goldwater. Team Clinton may wish now, 50 years later with South Carolina next up, that things were reversed but the record is clear.

Hillary Clinton ("Living History," page 21): I was also an active Young Republican and, later, a Goldwater girl, right down to my cowgirl outfit and straw cowboy hat emblazoned with the slogan "AuH20." … I liked Senator Goldwater because he was a rugged individualist who swam against the political tide.