Bernie Sanders Makes First Presidential Campaign Stop in Michigan

YPSILANTI, MI – Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders is making his first campaign visit to Michigan Monday when he visits with students at Eastern Michigan University.

Doors open at 12:30 p.m. for the public event at the Convocation Center, 799 N Hewitt Road, according to an event listing on Sanders’ website, which said he will discuss issues ranging from college affordability, health-care reform and getting big money out of politics.

RSVPs are strongly encouraged, according to the campaign. Admission is first come, first served.

Sanders is fresh off a huge win over Democratic Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, after finishing nearly evenly with Cinton in the Iowa Caucuses.

Sanders visit comes a little more than a week after Clinton campaigned in Flint, and almost three weeks before the two Democrats are scheduled to debate in Flint. Michigan’s presidential primary is March 8, and the Democratic debate in Flint is March 6.

A self-described socialist, Sanders 74, has a renegade appeal among college students. His rallies draw thousands, in part because he “brilliantly calls for free public college education,” Brent Budowsky, a columnist for The Hill, wrote.

Budowsky said Sanders has the characteristics young voters — and most Americans — want in a political candidate: “authenticity and ideas,a politics of conviction and values that soars above the petty cash of political propaganda and political spin.”

In South Carolina, where Sanders was campaigning in advance of the Feb. 20 primary, 24-year-old sales associate Caroline Buddin told The New York Times that Sanders “may seem like some old geezer who doesn’t care about stuff, but if you actually give him the time of day and listen to what he has to say, he has a lot of good ideas.”

Clinton, 68, has struggled to win support among young voters. She won the Iowa Caucuses by a thin margin, but among voters in the 17-29 age group, Sanders defeated her by 70 percentage points. In 2008, Barack Obama won that demographic by 43 percentage points.

Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist who worked on Bill Clinton’s 1996 presidential campaign, told NPR that for 18- and 20-year-old voters, “Hillary is just another public figure” whose Senate career and tenure as secretary of state were already over when they graduated from high school.

“There is a generational shift going on,” Sheinkopf said.

Ohio Gov. John Kaisch, a Republican, begins a two-day tour of Michigan Monday, too.

Stops include the Kirkhof Center at Grand Valley State University in Allendale at 10 a.m., the Lake Huron Room at the Michigan State University State University Student Union in East Lansing at 3:30 p.m., and a ton hall meeting at th Macomb County Republican Party headquarters, 13441 Hall Road in Utica at 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday, he will hold a town hall meeting at the Livonia Republican Party field office, 33462 West Seven Mile in Livonia at 10 a.m.

To register for the events, go to www.eventbrite.com and search for the Kasich events in Michigan.

» Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr / Creativ Commons