Bernie on the picket line in Iowa
By Vaughn Hillyard
Beaver County Blue via NBC News
DES MOINES, Iowa, Sept 7, 2015 — A picketing president? Bernie Sanders said it could be him.
“Yeah, I might. That’s right. Why not,” Sanders said when asked about the possibility after addressing AFSCME union members on Saturday in Altoona, Iowa.
The day before, Sanders picketed outside a Cedar Rapids plant that produces specialized starches alongside union workers engaged in a battle with the plant’s parent company, Ingredion, over new contract negotiations.
And to a crowd of 400 on Thursday in Burlington, Iowa—an old, union town hit hard over the last three decades by shuttered factories—Sanders emphatically stated: “The bottom line is: For millions of American workers, wages in this country are just too damn low.”
Since announcing his candidacy, Sanders has zeroed in on blue-collar voters, consistently addressing low wages, unemployment issues and the country’s trade policies in stump speeches—pushing back against the notion that the economic recovery is as strong as often touted.
“I assumed I would be a Hillary supporter—and rightly or wrongly, probably because I feel like in the last twenty years, the greatest time we had between financial stability was during Bill Clinton’s run,” said Ron Lowe, 52, of Grinnell, Iowa.
But Lowe said he will caucus for Sanders in February. He drove 45 minutes with his mother-in-law last Thursday to see the Democratic candidate at a rally. (Continued)