I want to be the candidate placed on the ballot by the people, not the party.
After the election of George McGovern in 1972 as a peace candidate - I should say his election to the nomination of the Democratic Party - the party changed the rules to steeply tilt that playing field, creating superdelegates and Super Tuesdays that make it very hard for a grassroots campaign to prevail.
It seems the only way to gain attention today is to organize a march and protest something.
The Sanders campaign showed that a candidate with mildly progressive programs could win the nomination, maybe the election, even without the backing of the major funders or any media support. There's good reason to suppose that Sanders would have won the nomination had it not been for shenanigans of the Obama-Clinton party managers. He is now the most popular political figure in the country by a large margin.
I'll get 30,000 post cards on an issue before I can even find out that a bill has been introduced.
Referring to the efficiency of lobbyists:
To pass a big idea in this town. You almost need social unrest
My mother at the age of 65 decided she was going to run for mayor. She had never run for public office, and she decided she wanted to try and do some things for the community.
I never had a single conversation about politics with Ross Perot in my life; still haven't.
I locate a great deal of the power of Occupy Wall Street in the name itself, 'Occupy Wall Street,' or '#OccupyWallStreet.' It works because the name contains everything you need to know: the tactic and the target. The name is also modular. You can create your own offshoot in your own city.
And you probably remember all of those papers and documents that they had published in the newspapers. And, you know, when you look at that, it really was their own little jihad that they had going. It just wasn't taken very seriously then.
The possibility of my presidential candidacy emerged spontaneously in public opinion polls. For my part, I noticed people's affection when I was doing work on the ground. I think the important thing is that my candidacy was born from citizens themselves, driven by the people and which the parties picked up favorably.
Nobody ever wins the first time they run for office. Nobody's ever supposed to win their first bid for office. Nobody's ever supposed to win without taking lobbyists' money. No one's ever supposed to defeat an incumbent. No one's ever supposed to run a grassroots campaign without running any ads on television. We did all of those things.
I think, it was like 30 million dollars the Libertarians talk about that it cost them to get on the ballot. We don't have 30 million dollars. We're a people powered campaign.
When the size of the group supporting your cause reaches a critical mass, any legislator or elected official has to pay attention.
We in a sense went for the Bernie Sanders model OK? Now we're also in turmoil as a result of this result.
I was elected because I believed in what we call "grassroots politics," politics from the bottom up, not the top down.
I'd rather work with a grassroots organization than in politics. I'm not sure I'd be the best politician because I don't think I'm good about tactfully tiptoeing around questions in the right way.
As the documentary 'True Son' illustrates, my campaign for city council started really small - with eight mostly political neophytes in my living room and with young people knocking on doors.
When Donald Trump became the candidate we didn't have any money other than Mr. Trump's money and I don't think he wanted to write that check all himself. We needed to create a grassroots campaign and we needed to go out and find millions of people to be our supporters and Facebook allowed us to do that in alarming numbers, very fast.
We'll have to marshal our forces in Washington. It won't be easy. That doesn't mean it can't be done.
Really, running an underdog, insurgent political campaign against an opponent many folks think can't be beat, and going out and meeting folks and talking about your ideas for America and Washington, is a lot of fun and a real privilege.
Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington -- it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. ...This is your victory.
You know why I'm running for governor? Because everything we care about is under siege from President Donald Trump and Bruce Rauner.
When you show up at a rally supporting a bill, you are supporting the bill.
We are the great grassroots campaign of the modern era, built from mousepads, shoe leather and hope.
