Last Friday, Rachel Maddow hosted the first Democratic Presidential Forum of the election cycle in South Carolina, a key early voting state. During the forum, she interviewed the three remaining candidates, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, one on one to avoid the mayhem that took place during the first debate last month. The first one interviewed was O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland.
When Maddow asked O'Malley if he believed that Senator Sanders' campaign has been about debating the pros and cons of Democratic Socialism, O'Malley responded by going into a passionate monologue about how people need to come together in this country during hard times, regardless of political views, and that he felt that he was the most qualified to bring them together. Maddow's follow-up was, "Let me press you on that point that you just didn't answer me on that."
When it was Sanders' turn to be interviewed, he answered every question to the best of his ability, not holding back anything from Maddow or the audience. Even on arguably his weakest issue, gun legislation, he was honest and upfront, while defending his more conservative stance on the issue. “If we are going to make progress on this issue — and I know Hillary Clinton has kind of misstated my view — as a nation, we are going to have to stop shouting at each other, and we’re going to have to come together.”
During the course of each candidate's interview, Maddow had them each pick an envelope filled with miscellaneous (or in Maddow's words, "stupid"), trivial questions, such as, "If you had to catch your own food to survive, would you hunt or would you fish?" or, "What do you most miss that technology has made obsolete?" Maddow asked Hillary Clinton which GOP candidate she would choose to be her nominee for Vice President, and while it was a stupid question, she neglected to answer it, saying that there were Republicans she could pick - "just none of them." When asked which Republican he would put in his cabinet, although this time widening the options to the whole Republican party, Sanders gave an honest and straightforward answer, naming John McCain, among other Republicans he has worked with in the past, as potential cabinet members.
This isn't the first time Bernie Sanders has been straightforward a no-nonsense on the national stage. During the first Democratic debate last month in Las Vegas, moderator Anderson Cooper asked Hillary Clinton what her inability to put the e-mail scandal behind her said about her ability to face more challenging problems. After Clinton sidestepped the question, Senator Sanders jumped to her defense. "The American people are sick and tired about hearing your damn e-mails," he said, listing off problems of higher importance in the country today. "Enough of the e-mails," he cried, "let's talk about the real issues facing America."
The point I'm trying to make here is this: while other candidates look for ways to sidestep the questions and the issues being asked of them, Bernie Sanders tackles them head-on. He has the radical notion that a world leader should be honest and truthful, even if he is weaker on some subjects. Bernie is not the perfect candidate; but his commitment to honesty and his passion to push America forward do make him, in this writer's opinion, the right one.
