Bernie Sanders in Iowa City: Think big, make political revolution

IOWA CITY - Think big, Sen. Bernie Sanders told an overflow crowd that clapped, cheered and gave him standing ovations Saturday for his call for campaign finance reform, a single-payer Medicare-for-all health care system, free college tuition, universal preschool and paid paternity leave.

'Please don't think small,” said the Vermont senator, who is seeking the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

'Think big. Be involved. Let's make a political revolution,” Sanders said at the Robert A. Lee Community Center in Iowa City. More than 300 people filled the room, and more than 200 listened outside.

Mary Pat Cavanaugh of Iowa City was ready to enlist after listening to Sanders speak and answer questions for more than an hour. 'I'm signing up,” she said. 'I can't live with the way the country is going anymore.”

Her biggest issues - and one of Sanders' - is income inequality.

'It's the most immoral. It infuriates me that we let it happen,” Cavanaugh said.

It can be undone, according to Sanders, an independent who self-identifies as a Democratic socialist. It must be undone if the nation is going to address a multitude of issues, he said.

'It's our job to transfer that wealth back down to the middle class and working families,” he said. 'We have to deal with this issue of distribution of wealth. And when we begin to do that, we will have the resources to deal with paternity leave, to deal with the mental health care needs of our kids, to make sure that every veteran who comes back from a war gets the health care he or she needs.”

It won't happen when the top one-tenth of the 1 percent control almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of Americans and is using its wealth to buy the political process in Washington and state capitols. So he called for a constitutional amendment to turn back the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United.

Noting that he was speaking in a university community, Sanders called for free tuition at public colleges and universities.

'One of great crises facing this country is the fact that we live in a very competitive global economy. If we are going to compete effectively … we need the best-educated workforce in the world,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of young people can't afford to go to college, and those who graduate often have tens of thousands of dollars of debt, Sanders said.

'What kind of stupidity is it?” he asked.

That touched Connor McPartland, a recent University of Iowa graduate from Missouri., who sported a 'Bernie” sticker.

'I have lots of loans, and his plan to let me refinance that hits close to home,” he said.

Sanders, who called for an investment in infrastructure to create as many as 13 million good-paying jobs, will need to knit together the Cavanaughs and McPartlands along with those whose priorities include expanding Social Security benefits, raising the minimum wage and opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and increased spending on the military.

'I can't do this alone,” he said. 'I can't win the election by myself,” Sanders said. 'I can't govern by myself. The political revolution means that each and every person here and in America in his or her own way has got to take a stand.

'You are not wasting your time,” he concluded. 'What you're doing is the most patriotic. You are standing up for America and standing up for democracy. That's what we've all got to do.”