Vermont US senator announces bid for Democratic Party presidential nomination
Bernie Sanders' long-shot bid for Democratic Party nomination to focus on economic issues and plight of the working and middle classes
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-avowed socialist and the longest-serving independent in congressional history, plans to announce a long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination today.
His decision would make him the first announced challenger to the party's overwhelming 2016 front runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, but Sanders won't necessarily be the last. Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley has been edging toward a run, and former Virginia Senator Jim Webb has also been actively pursuing a possible White House bid.
Sanders plans to issue a statement tomorrow signaling his intent to run and shortly after will file the needed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, according to a campaign adviser. A formal election kickoff is set for the end of May.
Sanders, who has a history of running uphill races - mostly unsuccessfully - is expected to make economic issues and, specifically, the anxieties of the working- and middle class a focal point of his campaign, if only to press Clinton to more forcefully address the issue.
In his extensive travels around the country, part of the soundings he took before deciding to run, Sanders has struck an uncompromisingly liberal stance, an antidote - as some on the left see it - to Clinton's more centrist approach.
Among his proposals, Sanders calls for free college tuition, a US$1 trillion programme to rebuild the nation's roads and bridges, government-run health care, higher taxes on the wealthy and publicly funded elections to reduce the influence of the country's rich donors.
He would break up the nation's big financial institutions and opposes trade agreements, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that President Barack Obama is pushing, which Sanders says have punished workers by shipping jobs overseas.