Bernie's In

Hillary Clinton isn’t the only democrat in the presidential race, and tonight Bernie Sanders is making his presence known in Houston to a packed house. Tonight on KHOU 11 News at 10 – what Houstonians think of his plans to win the nomination.

edgarblythe wrote:

Hillary Clinton isn’t the only democrat in the presidential race, and tonight Bernie Sanders is making his presence known in Houston to a packed house. Tonight on KHOU 11 News at 10 – what Houstonians think of his plans to win the nomination.

I watched the local news tonight, to see if they even mentioned this. They noted that he had to have a bigger meeting place than originally thought, but they did not touch on what was said.

Keep voting for the early leaders instead of the ones you think are best qualified in all respects. You will keep getting unqualified office holders if you convince enough people.

With five announced Democrats and 14 announced Republicans gunning for the White House, the 2016 presidential race is looking thicker by the minute. But just as the public’s attention turns to the campaign, candidate attention will be turning to you. As the largest voting demographic, candidates will be working very hard to tailor an appealing message to Millennials.

According to the Panetta Institute of Public Policy and the Pew Research Center, it appears Millennials will be looking at four major policy areas come 2016: independence from the Washington establishment, support for climate change mitigation policies, job creation and student debt reform. The candidate siding on the right side of all of these issues will very likely win the Millennial vote. That candidate appears to be Bernie Sanders.

ISSUE ONE: INDEPENDENCE FROM THE WASHINGTON ESTABLISHMENT

It is no secret that Americans are frustrated with today’s politicians. As a result, Millennials have become far less attached to the U.S.’s two-party system. A 2015 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center showed just that, finding 51% of Millennial voters identify as independents.

Many politicians have taken advantage of that shift in focus. Clinton, Christie and Webb have all decried the partisan gridlock and claimed that they would put an end to it . Sen. Rand Paul even wrote a book on the subject.

While these claims are all well and good, none of the candidates share Sanders’ independent track record. Although running as a Democrat, Sanders has been the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history. According to the Congressional Quarterly, Sanders has consistently managed to “bridge Washington’s toxic partisan divide” and his independence has shaped his leadership thus far.

Though he's tried to outflank Clinton to the left on a number of issues like income inequality and taxes, Sanders has been less decidedly liberal on topics like immigration reform and gun control.

In 2007, he voted against an immigration-reform package in the Senate, teaming up with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to add restrictive amendments to the bill. Many Latino lawmakers don't believe that Sanders has immigration reform at the top of his agenda in the same way that Clinton does.

"It is not his priority," Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected Office, told CNN last month. "I think that is one of the challenges his campaign is going to have to confront."

Sanders also hasn't made many inroads with African-American voters. Jensen, the director of Public Policy Polling, told Business Insider that most recent polls put the former Secretary of State's support among African-American voters at around 70-80%.

"If Sanders wins Iowa or New Hampshire it will build a lot of momentum for him that will help in the states that follow, but he's still going to struggle in places like South Carolina with large black populations and Nevada with large Hispanic populations unless he improves his appeal to nonwhite voters," Jensen said.

Hagner said that if the Clinton campaign becomes legitimately nervous, they may start putting issues in the spotlight that historically resonate with black and Hispanic voters.

"Immigration and gun rights are going to be problems for him. If you start to see stories pop up that have some finger prints, we'll know they're taking it seriously," Hagner said.