Bernie Sanders smiles at a packed-out Boutwell. (Photo by Johnathon Patrick).Surabhi Rao - Staff Writer
surrao@uab.edu
Vermont Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was greeted in Birmingham with 6,000 fans and attendees overflowing from the Boutwell Auditorium on Martin Luther King Day, the night of Monday, Jan. 18. He was received with loud cheering from a crowd of varying ages and races, chanting “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie.”
“We need a political revolution and it will take millions of us working together the day after the election... It ain’t Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, it’s you, you, you,” Sanders said in response.
Such a large crowd came to the rally that a vast number had to gather outside the arena in Linn Park, across from the auditorium, and watch the speech on a projector. Buses from as far as Montgomery and Tuskegee ferried in non-locals.
Despite the enthusiasm of the rally-goers, the overcrowding of the auditorium led to the closing of a warming station for the city’s homeless, drawing criticism online. However, in an AL.com article, the manager of Sanders’ Birmingham campaign claimed not to know of the impact of the rally on the usage of the warming station. Reportedly, other warming stations, such as the Firehouse Shelter, First Light and the Birmingham Salvation Army were also open that night as alternatives to the Boutwell warming station. According to the article, no homeless people were harmed by the cold on the night of the rally.
At UAB, there is now a Blazers for Bernie group led in part by Jared Bash, a foreign languages major.
“Before this event, many said that Bernie Sanders couldn’t fill an auditorium in Alabama,” Bash said. “This is clearly not true, as the house was packed and over 1,000 people were in an overflow area watching in the cold as well. People came from all over the state on organized buses to hear him speak. Bernie’s message is consistent and it resonates with the American people, not just the millionaires and billionaires.”
According to Real Clear Politics’ current poll, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Sanders’ main contender for the democratic nomination, is up by 13.2 points.
Despite this fact, many students on campus are still ‘feeling the Bern.’
“If we continue to work and bring people on board with the campaign, there is a path to victory in this race,” Bash said. “Bernie is more electable than Hillary when hypothetically matched up with Republican candidates. In addition, he’s polling excellently in Iowa and New Hampshire. What’s most astonishing about his campaign is the rate at which he has raised funds. Bernie does not have a super PAC and does not [in general] get donations from the wealthiest in our nation, yet he’s catching up and surpassing other major candidates in fundraising. In addition, he’s received more individual contributions than any campaign in history up until this point.”
Sanders’ rally followed presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Nov. 21st Birmingham campaign stop, nearly matching the Republican hopeful’s attendance of 10,000.
According to Kelsey McClure, former student at UAB and a current volunteer for the Sanders’ Campaign, “Bernie’s presence in the South is strong. I am continually impressed that he speaks to everyone, not the elite. I also appreciate that the events are free. I think he also appeals to the younger generation by addressing issues that we are facing. I am also impressed that he has been preaching the same message since the 80s (and earlier).”
Many UAB students attended. According to one among them, “He really showed me that he is an honest and trustworthy candidate and his track record shows that he won’t back down from challenging the billionaire class.”
While many UAB students support Sanders, others are less impressed.
“Bernie Sanders is less qualified to be president than I am to perform open-heart surgery,” said a sophomore Electrical Engineering major who wished to remain anonymous. “He has a delusional view on economics and a nonexistent foreign policy. People support him because they want free s—, including free college education. But what they don’t realize is that, by subsidizing college, they effectively negate its value. A bachelor’s degree becomes about as useful as a high school diploma. At that point, graduate school becomes the new equivalent to a college degree. Not to mention his tax plan to pay for all these free programs that basically boils down to taxing hardworking people to give free stuff to people that haven’t worked a day in their lives. Bernie Sanders may have the idiotic population under his thumb, but anyone with half a brain can see that his plans simply won’t work.”
