At one of his campaign’s largest venues yet, 47,500-seat Safeco Field in Seattle, Bernie Sanders on Friday drew an estimated crowd of between 15,000 and 20,000 enthusiastic supporters; yet, the bigger news is that a major cable network, MSNBC, carried a rally of his live for the first time.
MSNBC began airing coverage immediately after The Rachel Maddow Show, and continued with commentary by panelists, led by Joan Walsh, who, according to USUncut, “has spent the entire campaign season writing hit pieces about Bernie Sanders.” Despite this, the coverage could be seen as an acknowledgment by corporate media that Sanders is a serious challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Washington, Alaska and Hawaii Democrats are caucusing today, with Sanders expected to win handily over Clinton. The Seattle Times reported Sanders cited recent favorable polls during the rally and said a win in Washington could propel him to later victories in Oregon and California and eventually the nomination.
“’So don’t let anybody tell you Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate to take on the Republicans. It is just not true,’ he said.”
In his stump speech, Sanders called for free public college tuition, climate change action, universal single-payer healthcare, and criminal justice reform.
The Washington rally came on the same day as an earlier Portland, Oregon, rally at the Moda Center, where a bird landed first on the stage beside Sanders, then flew to his podium and perched for about 30 seconds. The normally serious Sanders broke out into laughter, as did the crowd, and said of the bird, “I think there may be some symbolism here. I know it doesn’t look like it, but that bird is really a dove asking us for world peace. No more wars!”
MSNBC aired that, too.
Featured image screengrab via YouTube
