Modesto is Set to Feel the Bern - BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD
[font color="navy"face="verdana"]Modesto is set to feel the Bern
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD
He’s been to Bakersfield, Visalia, Fresno, Sacramento, Stockton and a bunch of places in between. He’s stopped in Vancouver, Ventura, Philly, Poughkeepsie, Brooklyn, Boston and FDR’s grave. He even dropped in on the pope.
And now Bernie Sanders is coming to Modesto.
It’s not often that Modesto sees a presidential candidate, even a long shot. So we’re delighted for the visit. Sanders will address a rally at Modesto Centre Plaza at noon Thursday. We should expect the 74-year-old darling of college students everywhere to talk about bad bankers, the backbreaking cost of a college education, disappearing jobs, a fading middle class and more.
Messages like that resonate in the Valley, which might explain why he has been moving up and down Highway 99 like a tomato trucker in July.
Even some Republicans, those who can’t bring themselves to embrace Donald Trump, are feeling the Bern.
Sanders presents himself as a candidate for those who aren’t running hedge funds or can’t afford a Tesla. People like most of us.
After all, we’ve seen more than our share of hard times, harder knocks and frustration.
We were described as ground zero of the mortgage crisis that eventually crashed the economy. Unscrupulous bankers were pushing liar loans here before they figured out they would work everywhere, including in Wall Street board rooms.
And that wasn’t our first “ground zero.” We were among the first to have methamphetamine labs, whose nefarious cooks buried their deadly waste in barnyards or flushed it down toilets. We were ground zero for auto theft, a reflection of desperate people and too few cops.
Yet we’ve managed to maintain our perspective.
We’re less fearful of immigrants than we are of bureaucrats trying to empty our dams. We’re less worried about encouraging Silicon Valley entrepreneurs than we are about trying to sell Valley products like almonds, walnuts and wine overseas. We’re not asking whether the recovery will last, but when will it start.
So yes, a populist message has legs here in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. We expect a lot of people – young and old, conservative and liberal – will empathize with what they hear from Bernie on Thursday.
Sanders is likely to get a warm reception – hot, even, if the weather holds.
When most people around here go to the polls next week, the most popular politicians very well could be Sanders and Trump. So it’s entirely likely Sanders will be greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm.
After all, we’re just happy to no longer be ignored.[/font]
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/editorials/article81235517.html
