As the race for the Democratic nomination for president comes to a close in the coming weeks, Syracuse supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders are still promoting their candidates.
Bernie Sanders tapped a political chord in central New York during the race for the democratic nomination. He beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a couple of counties, like Oswego, Cayuga and Madison. He also pulled in more than 25,000 votes in the 24th Congressional District in total, just 1,200 fewer than Hillary Clinton. Supporter Andy Mager says that passion has kept the Sanders for Syracuse group alive.
"Syracuse for Sanders has continued to meet. People have been phone banking to West Virginia and Kentucky and now California and New Jersey. People have been traveling down to New Jersey to do door-to-door work there. And we’ve looking at, how do we continue this work into the future?”
Mager says that includes ensuring that, even if Clinton becomes the nominee, some of Sander’s campaign points make it onto the Democratic policy platform. Things like promoting plans that would deal with economic inequality and engage people in the political process.
"We hope that the Democratic Party establishment has really learned what has happened here. That they cannot continue to be a sort of corporate, slightly-more-progressive-than-the-Republicans party, but they really need to look at this mass of people who want transformative change.”
Mager, for one, says he’s not ready to decide if he will vote Clinton in the general election, assuming she gets the nomination.
“I’ll see where things are at in New York state. It may very well be that Hillary, if she’s the nominee, would easily win New York state. If that’s the case, I may very well support the Green candidate for president, just as a way to encourage Democrats to recognize that there’s much work to be done.”
Mager says other Sanders supporters he knows will take their cue from Sanders himself.
