Bernie Sanders: ‘We’ve Moved So Far Toward Oligarchy ... Big Money Has So Much Power’
Bernie Sanders: "We've Moved So Far Toward Oligarchy... Big Money Has So Much Power... I'm Going To Try My Best" (RealClearPolitics)
NANCY CORDES, CBS NEWS: You've been very vocal about money in politics, but you're going to be running against candidates on the right and the left who are going to raise upwards of a billion dollars.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (INDEPENDENT SOCIALIST, VERMONT): Try two billion.
CORDES: How do you get your message out in that environment?
SANDERS: You're raising a profound question. This is perhaps the most important issue. And what the issue is about is whether any candidate who is not beholden to the billionaire class and corporate interests can in fact run a campaign that represents the needs of the middle class and working families.
You know what?
Maybe it is over with. Maybe it can't happen. Maybe we have moved so far towards an oligarchic form of society, where the big money has so much power, that there may not be candidates who can win elections, because of the power of big money.
But let me tell you, I'm going to do my best to see that that is not true. And the way we do it is to get a lot of small individual contributions. I'm not going to have any super PAC. The way I've always done it -- We get people to write checks for $25, $100, and hopefully we'll have a few million of them, and hopefully we'll have the money.
Not to have more money than our opponents, but enough money to run a credible campaign. Also. A whole lot of volunteers out there working hard.
CORDES: Hillary Clinton says she doesn't believe in all this money in politics either, but she doesn't want to unilaterally disarm,so she is going to take those big money checks; what about that strategy?
SANDERS: Well, for me that is not an option. Frankly, the billionaire class is not going to give me a whole lot of money, even if I wanted it, and I don't. I've never taken any corporate PAC money in my life, I don't want their money, I don't believe in their agenda. And I'll stand with working families, and hopefully we'll get enough money to run the kind of campaign that we need.
