Bernie Sanders: Feel the Bern

A political campaign -- especially presidential -- is a multifaceted and often times fragile endeavor. A candidate must utilize all mediums available, online and otherwise, for marketing and distributing their stances and must have the means, monetarily, to do so. Creating websites, traveling, purchasing airtime and gathering voter information requires a massive amount of funding, and often the candidate with the most money can gather the largest follower base. Our text discusses the impact of "third party" endorsements and monetary contributions ranging from celebrities to lobby groups. These "third parties" are not political parties but players contributing to the candidate's campaign and acting as surrogates. Lobby groups have famously been the backbone of many presidential campaigns, but recently, voters have been showing that they're sick and tired of these lobbyists more than they have ever before at the polls. Bernie Sanders has capitalized on this. Sanders' closing the gap on Hillary Clinton has been attributed, in part, to Clinton's heavy involvement with lobby groups. Voters have expressed increasing concerns of Clinton's being "owned by the banks," casting more doubt on an already shaky question, "Can she be trusted?" based on previous Benghazi and ongoing email server questions. Meanwhile, Sanders has raised a similar amount of money to Clinton's campaign with donations from almost exclusively individual donors.

Sanders has been running a radically different campaign than most Democrats and most presidential candidates, for that matter. He has focused in on voters' "sick and tired with Washington" attitude and built a campaign around his much different ideologies: "Sanders is a self-proclaimed Socialist." His radically different, "for the people Socialism" speaks to voters who have called for real change in American politics -- it also speaks to Sanders' largest fan base: Millennials. While Sanders' campaign may not have as strong a social media presence as other candidates, his followers have created plenty of buzz for him; this can be just as beneficial as a campaign-managed social media outlet. The public begins "trending topics," and if a campaign can gain free exposure, what could be better?

Another of Sanders' campaign goals, which focuses on its younger audience, is getting that younger audience to the polls. A young demographic frustrated by the previous several years of economic struggle and concerns about their own future (more economic struggles, crippling student loan debt, social security) has flocked to Sanders rallies to hear firsthand the common man/woman, for the people, revolutionary political ideas for themselves. Free college education, a rebuilding of the U.S.'s infrastructure, and breaking up the big banks (the same kind of institutions blamed for losing their parents their retirement money) has, thus far, appeared to accomplish the campaign's voter turnout goal.