Sanders rails against ‘demagogues’ in Davenport campaign stop

DAVENPORT - Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders continued his sparring with Donald Trump at a rally Tuesday night in Davenport, accusing the Republican candidate of trying to divide Americans while arguing that minorities aren't to blame for a disappearing middle class.

Sanders and Trump, who also was in Iowa on Tuesday, have been increasingly poking at one another as each are seeking to draw non-traditional voters to their column at the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses.

Trump has called Sanders a 'wacko.” Sanders said Monday that Trump is a 'pathological liar.” And on Tuesday night, Sanders railed against 'demagogues” who pit one group of Americans against another.

'What people like Donald Trump and other demagogues do is to say, ‘You know what the cause of the problem is: It's the Mexicans, it's the Muslims, it's the blacks … it's any minority out there.' Our job is to do exactly the opposite of what Trump does,” Sanders said, as the crowd cheered.

The Vermont senator's rally in Davenport was in the same building at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds where Trump appeared a few weeks ago. And while he criticized Trump, Sanders said in an interview that people in this country are justifiably angry, but need to have their anger channeled in the right direction.

It's not because of minorities that people are suffering, Sanders said, but because of 'corporate greed,” 'disastrous trade policies” and the 'illegal behavior of Wall Street and the lack of a living wage.”

Later, he told the crowd, 'the business model of Wall Street is fraud.”

Sanders has drawn people who are attracted by his criticism of Wall Street, his focus on income inequality and what he says he is a corrupt political culture.

Mitch Bailey, a 32-year-old musician from Davenport, said he hasn't attended the caucuses before, but plans to go to support Sanders.

'He's different. He's actually saying something I can agree with and fully support for once,” Bailey said, adding that Sanders is 'somebody that actually represents me for once, which almost never happens in politics.”

Megan Preciado, a teacher at Davenport Central High School who lives in DeWitt, said she caucused for President Barack Obama in 2008.

'I like that he's worried about the American people, working people,” she said of Sanders. 'As a teacher, hearing that he wants to support education, and that he wants to support college and trade and things that will get us ahead in the future, is wonderful.”

Bob Fox, the general manager of the Mississippi Valley Fair, said attendance was 1,850 people.

Sanders covered a range of topics in a speech of roughly 75 minutes, including criminal justice reform and what he says is the need to 'demilitarize the local police.”

With five weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, Sanders is trailing Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to polls.

In an interview before the rally Tuesday night, Sanders acknowledged that he's probably down 'seven, eight points” to Clinton, or roughly the margin the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll had recently. But he dismissed other surveys as 'not so accurate” that say he's trailing by much more.

Sanders said he plans a blitz in the five weeks of the campaign. Earlier in the day, he was in Muscatine.

He said he can continue in the presidential race if he loses in Iowa and New Hampshire. But, he said, he believes he can win in Iowa. 'We have the momentum,” he said.

Still, he said much of his chances in Iowa depend on a big turnout.

'If there is not a large voter turnout, we probably lose,” he told the audience at the rally.