It was supposed to be a unity trip.
Bernie Sanders will conclude his "Come Together and Fight Back" tour with Tom Perez this weekend-a political roadshow that's taken the Vermont senator and the Democratic National Committee chair to more than half a dozen red and purple states across America since Monday.
But like most road trips, there have been some bumps along the way.
"At a time of massive income and wealth inequality and a shrinking middle class, we need a government which represents all Americans, not just Wall Street, multi-national corporations, and the top 1 percent", Sanders and Perez said in a joint statement on Monday. He laid out a vision for the country that he said involves a Democratic Party that "stand (s) up for voters in 50 states, not just the West Coast and the East Coast". The woman who introduced Perez said this: "Maybe you came through because you are curious about the new DNC chairman and the future of Democratic politics?" But "unity" doesn't exactly describe the spirit of the tour.
"If you are concerned with labels, you might bristle at the notion of a registered Independent jockeying for control over the direction of the Democratic Party - and there were certainly some in the party apparatus that expressed precisely this sentiment during the 2016 campaign cycle", said Lynda Tran, another Democratic strategist. That decision earned him a harsh rebuke from NARAL, a pro-choice organization, and distancing from Perez and the DNC as a whole. Their opposition to Trump.
SHAPIRO: Last night, Bernie Sanders told an audience in Miami that Donald Trump did not win the election.
"BER-NIE, BER-NIE, BER-NIE!", chanted the estimated 3,000 Sanders followers who packed The Rail performance center on the city's near west side to hear their man once again lay the hickory to the Donald Trump machine.
- Perez's delivery has raised some eyebrows. In the same interview, he blamed Republican gains at the state and federal level on "the failure of the Democratic Party to have a progressive agenda, to bring people into this party, to mobilize people".
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Under the arrangement, agreed by former US President Barack Obama and Turnbull in November within days of Pres. Australia is the only country to have fought alongside the U.S.in every major conflict since World War I.
Earlier Thursday, however, abortion-rights advocates argued that Sanders and the Democratic Party shouldn't support those who favor restricting abortion. And then he kept cursing.
Tanya Torp had enough of the Kentucky Democratic Party when she saw one of the state's politicians, Alison Lundergan Grimes, holding a gun.
He knows people have protest fatigue, and the feeling that opposing Trump can not change anything, Sanders said.
"What's not so clear is exactly what's in it for Bernie Sanders", Rall mused.
In February 2016 Sanders spoke to about 7,000 supporters at the Verizon Theater, but he lost the Texas primary to Clinton. Part of the point of the event was to boost a Sanders supporter who is now running for Omaha mayor. There is no casual disagreement about the issue of abortion.
"Kentuckians have roundly rejected the ultra-liberal, anti-jobs platform of coastal elites like Sanders and Perez", Kentucky Republican Party spokesman Tres Watson said. And both Perez and Sanders had delivered fiery speeches that had pumped up the crowd in a key city of a critical swing state.
"You're the best!" one fan yelled.
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