After Sanders’ Visit, PEA Feels the Bern

Sen. Bernie Sanders visited the Exeter Town Hall on Friday, Feb. 5 in a last-minute effort to garner votes before the New Hampshire primary. The Vermont senator thereafter defeated the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the primary this past Tuesday.After losing to Clinton by a narrow margin in Iowa—a result the senator had not expected eight months ago—Sanders returned to the granite state with confidence and an expectation to win the primary.Arriving at Exeter a day after presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rally, Sanders attracted hundreds of students and residents throughout Rockingham County despite the falling snow. Some, similar to Trump’s rally, were turned away due to the limited space of the town hall.To connect and communicate with those who could not join Sanders at the rally, the senator spent the first 15 minutes of the rally outside the town hall with the disappointed supporters.“At the rally, initially, he was 15 minutes late to his speech in the town hall and a bunch of people around me were frustrated. I later found out that he was talking to the people outside in the snowstorm, who were waiting in line but couldn’t get inside,” senior Sean Taylor said. “I think that is a great testament to how kind of a man he is.”

"At this point in the race, it’s all about momentum. And right now, going into Nevada, he has the momentum."

Before Sanders began his speech, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield—co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s—introduced and endorsed the senator; the two ice cream moguls defended Sanders from Clinton’s charge in the last democratic debate that he is committing a “very artful smear” against her. They also provided free ice cream at the end of the event.During his speech, Sanders focused on a variety of topics, ranging from society security and health care to minimum wage.“We have millions and millions of seniors trying to get by on $11,000, $13,000 a year in social security benefits,” Sanders said. “Trying to buy some bread, some food, some medicine, trying to keep their house warm. You know what? You can’t do it on 12,000 a year.”Most Exonians who attended Sanders’s rally said they enjoyed his eloquence, while some commented on the redundancy of his rhetoric.Senior Moonlan Zhang said that she was impressed by Sanders’s speech and particularly intrigued by the event’s geniality—an element that lacked in other candidates’ rallies.“That was my first Bernie rally, [and] I was really excited to see what all the hype was about,” Zhang said. “I thought he was an excellent speaker as expected, but I [especially] loved how much friendlier the atmosphere at the Bernie rally was compared to the Trump rally the day before.”Senior Chris Vazan disagreed with Zhang and said that he was unimpressed by the Vermont senator, citing his speeches as amalgamations of repetitive, inflammatory language.“Bernie really needs to start varying his rhetoric,” Vazan said. “It’s reached the point that during his speeches he can start three words, and I can fill in the rest of the paragraph verbatim.”After visiting Exeter, Sanders spent the weekend rallying across the granite state, and this past Tuesday, Sanders scored a definitive victory over Clinton.Many students, democrats and republicans alike, said that a Sanders’s victory was expected.“I think that a Bernie Sanders victory in New Hampshire is not surprising—almost all polls here had showed him in the lead for the last few months; however, a landslide victory—which he had tonight—will be a big blow to the Clinton campaign,” Taylor said. “At this point in the race, it’s all about momentum. And right now, going into Nevada, he has the momentum.”Upper Ali Hassani agreed.“It was quite expected. Bernie has a strong following in NH due to its proximity to VT, where Bernie is based,” Hassani said. “Regardless, I think his victory in the NH primaries shows that his message is being heard loud and clear.”Hassani continued. “ I think he should keep doing what he’s been doing—it turned him from an underdog to a menace to Clinton’s campaign.”Senior and co-head of Democratic Club Cesar Zamudio, who shared that he supports Clinton, said that he is happy for Sanders but hopes Clinton will continue to work effectively toward the democratic nomination.“We were all prepared for this outcome, and we just have to keep moving forward, getting out the vote and coming together to elect a Democrat to the Oval Office. Hillary needs to continue reaching out to Hispanic, black, female and young voters in order to ensure that she will win the nomination,” Zamudio said.Vazan said that although the win in New Hampshire was anticipated because of the already-established “name recognition, popularity and more than enough energy from his supporters [in New Hampshire],” in order to “galvanize the rest of the nation, he needs to start talking specifically about what he plans to do, as well as talk about a wider variety of issues.”Zhang agreed that Sanders’s words tend to be demagogic rather than definitive.“I do think that he talks a big talk with political revolutions and stuff like that and that he should ground it in more specifics,” Zhang said.Hassani said that he hopes Sanders will clarify his stance on foreign policy, specifically regarding the Middle East. “He has continually dodged questions about the Palestine-Israel conflict in order to not cause controversy, which can be seen as a cop-out to supporters who are invested in the conflict,” Hassani said.On the day of the primary, the Exeter Political Union (EPU) also organized a mock primary on campus to assess the political stratification of the student body. In the mock primary, 300 out of the 410 total students voted for the two standing democratic candidates, of which Sanders received 223 and Clinton received 77, correlating with the results of the NH primary.