BURLINGTON, Vt. – Fox News
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders kicked off his longshot presidential campaign Tuesday with a pitch to liberals in the Democratic Party and others who want change from a "rigged economy" that favors the rich.
Sanders vowed to make income inequality, a campaign finance overhaul and climate change his leading issues as he takes on Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
"This type of rigged economy is not what America is supposed to be about," the self-described democratic socialist said in remarks prepared for his rally. The event came several weeks after Sanders announced his candidacy — this time, the plan was to hand out free ice cream before his crowd of supporters.
He says there is "something profoundly wrong" when so much of the nation's income goes to the top 1 percent of all earners.
"I know what I believe," Sanders said in a fundraising email hours before his event, pushing back against "the billionaire class" trying to buy the election. "That's why today marks the beginning of our political revolution."
Sanders is trying to ignite a grassroots fire among left-leaning Democrats wary of Clinton — a group that pined for months for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to get in the race. Some still do.
But while Warren remains committed to the Senate, repeatedly saying she won't run for the White House, Sanders is laying out an agenda in step with the party's progressive wing and Warren's platform — reining in Wall Street banks, tackling college debt and creating a government-financed infrastructure jobs program.
Clinton is in a commanding position by any measure, far in front of both Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is widely expected to get into the race Saturday.
Yet Sanders' supporters in New Hampshire say his local ties and longstanding practice of holding town hall meetings and people-to-people campaigning — a staple in the nation's first primary state — will serve him well.
"Toward the Vermont border it's like a love-fest for Bernie," said Jerry Curran, an Amherst, New Hampshire, Democratic activist who has been involved in the draft Warren effort. "He's not your milquetoast left-winger. He's kind of a badass left-winger."
Vermont Public Radio covered Sanders's
announcement live. His education plan has been diaried in DK before but it's important to see that Europe is noticing how much farther his plan goes than the PBO plan for universal community college education.
The candidate with a plan for 'free' university education
If Germany, Denmark and Sweden can offer their young people a free university education, Bernie Sanders says, the US can, too.
The Vermont senator, the "democratic socialist" independent who formally announces his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on Monday, is making the soaring cost of higher education in the US a key issue in his candidacy.
He's considered the longest of long-shots to beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the primaries, but by targeting the soaring cost of college tuition he may have found an issue that resonates with the same young voters who helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency.
From 2004 to 2014 the inflation adjusted cost of in-state tuition at public universities has increased more than 40%.
A four-year university education there now averages $9,139 (£6,000), not including room and board. The price tag for out-of-state enrolees and those attending private colleges is much higher - often exceeding $100,000 for four years.