Bernie poses for a selfie with a supporter in Manchester, NH, May 2.
Sen. Bernie Sanders will make his presidential primary campaign official Tuesday, May 26, with a public kick-off on the shores of Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont's Waterfront Park. Attendees will be treated to free ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s and entertained by Mango Jam, a Vermont-based Zydeco/Cajun band. Jerry Greenfield, who with Ben Cohen founded the Vermont-based ice cream company, has endorsed Sanders.
The senator said:
"My hometown of Burlington and the people of Vermont have a special place in my heart. There is nowhere else in the world where I would hold an event this important.
"In Vermont, I have learned that focusing on important issues and not engaging in negative campaigns is what people want. I have learned that grassroots campaigning—holding town meetings, knocking on doors, face-to-face discussions—is more important than money in winning elections. That is what I have done in Vermont and that is the lesson I will take with me around the country on this national campaign.
"The formal kickoff will set the stage for the campaign to come," Sanders continued. "I will lay out an 'Agenda for America' which addresses the major crises we face and a vision of a government which works for all of our people and not just the billionaire class."
On Wednesday, Sanders called Kinsey, a park ranger in Florida, to thank him for the $10 he contributed to the campaign, making him the 100,000th donor since fund-raising began. The campaign has raised more than $4 million since the beginning of May.
Sanders will head out on Wednesday, May 27, for campaign stops in New Hampshire and then head to eastern Iowa on Friday. Events there will include Davenport, Muscatine, an event in Cedar County, and one in Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa.
For everyone who is thinking, like BrooklynBadBoy, that Sanders should buy a comb, here's some 44-year-old proof that you're wasting your time:
From the Burlington, Vermont, Free Press, Nov. 24, 1971:
Bernie Sanders, age 30, 1971.
Bernard Sanders, 30, announces he is running for the U.S. Senate in the special election following the death of Sen. Winston Prouty, R-Vt. Sanders describes himself as a carpenter who has worked with "disturbed children." Asked why he was running, Sanders says, "What the two major parties are saying is irrelevant regarding the problems facing this country. ... A democracy is made up of people, and they are not making the decisions. The concentration of power makes the average man feel irrelevant; this results in apathy. As for my qualifications, I am not a politician."