February 1, 2016

Sanders Talks Up His Small Game on the Eve of His First Big Test

And takes a final dig at Hillary Clinton along the way.

Dennis Van Tine/ZUMA

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For a presidential candidate aiming to come away with a big upset in Monday’s Iowa caucuses, Bernie Sanders closed out his final night before the the first votes are cast by wholeheartedly embracing his small-ball approach to campaigning. His final Iowa rally, to a crowd of 1,700 at Grand View University in Des Moines on Sunday, was introduced by a string of not-quite-A-list actors and musicians: Connor Paolo (Serena’s obnoxious younger brother on Gossip Girl), Josh Hutcherson (Peeta in The Hunger Games), and Foster the People.

The crowd played along, but didn’t really perk up until Sanders himself showed up. The senator from Vermont rolled through a 50-minute stump speech tackling the full range of his usual points—Walmart should pay a fair wage, health care should be run by the government, banks should have to pay for free public colleges—but took a little time early in his spiel to boast about how much less money he raised from big outside donors than his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“My opponent yesterday announced that she had received some $45 million for her super-PAC,” Sanders said. “We announced that we zero dollars for our super-PAC.” (He didn’t mention the money that unions have spent on his campaign.) He continued, “We announced that we have received throughout this campaign—and this is so unbelievable, never in a million years would I have thought it possible—that we have received up to now 3.2 million individual contributions. That is more contributions than any candidate up to this point of a campaign in the history of the United States of America.”

Small ball does often win big games. Monday will reveal whether it’s sufficient to give Sanders the first big win of the race to the Democratic nomination.

Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly said that actor Richmond Arquette spoke at the rally.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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