{"id":32487,"date":"2019-02-19T13:31:07","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T13:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32487"},"modified":"2019-02-19T13:31:07","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T13:31:07","slug":"bernie-sanders-to-run-for-us-president-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32487","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Sanders to run for US president in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

US<\/a> Senator Bernie Sanders<\/a> has announced he is running for the presidency, launching a second bid for the White House after a surprisingly strong run for the Democratic nomination in 2016.<\/p>\n

Sanders, 77, made the announcement in a radio interview<\/a> in his home state of Vermont on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I am running for president for two reasons,” said Sanders on\u00a0Vermont Public Radio. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

They are<\/span> <\/span>to oppose President Donald Trump<\/a> and to enact many of the ideas that Sanders had championed in 2016, including universal healthcare access and the minimum hourly wage of\u00a0<\/span>$15, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think the current occupant of the White House is an embarrassment to our country,” Sanders said. <\/span><\/p>\n

“I think he is a pathological liar… I also think he is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, somebody who is gaining cheap political points by trying to pick on minorities, often undocumented immigrants.”<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an email to supporters early on Tuesday morning, Sanders\u00a0pledged to build a vast grassroots movement to confront the special interests that he said dominate government and politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Our campaign is about transforming our country and creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crowded field\u00a0<\/h2>\n

The senator from Vermont launched his 2016 candidacy against Hillary Clinton as a long shot, but ended up capturing 23 state nominating contests and pushing the party to the left, generating tension between its establishment and liberal wings that has not entirely abated.<\/p>\n

This time around, Sanders has been among the leaders in opinion polls of prospective 2020 candidates, but he faces a field more heavily populated with other liberal progressives touting many of the same ideas he brought into the party mainstream.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The list of politicians seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination already includes his fellow Senators Cory Booker<\/a>, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The field could also grow, with a number of high-profile Democrats still considering presidential bids, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke.<\/p>\n

The crowded field\u00a0<\/span>could make it harder for Sanders to generate the same level of fervent support as four years ago.<\/p>\n

He is also\u00a0<\/span>likely to face questions about his age and relevance in a party that is increasingly advancing more diverse and fresh voices, including women and minorities – groups that Sanders struggled to win over in 2016.<\/p>\n

The senator also faces different pressures in the #MeToo era.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the run-up to Sanders’s 2020 announcement, persistent allegations emerged of sexual harassment of women by male staffers during his 2016 campaign. Politico and The New York Times<\/a> reported several allegations of unwanted sexual advances and pay inequity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sanders offered an unequivocal apology over the complaints on January 10, saying:\u00a0“What they [women] experienced was absolutely unacceptable and certainly not what a progressive campaign – or any campaign – should be about.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The primaries and caucuses that determine the party’s nominee for next year’s election will begin in February 2020 in Iowa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sanders served in the House until 2006 when he was elected to the US Senate. He was re-elected in 2012 and 2018.<\/p>\n

While Sanders remains popular among many Democrats, some in the party have questioned whether their champion this time around should be a septuagenarian white man.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Senator Bernie Sanders has announced he is running for the presidency, launching a second bid for the White House after a surprisingly strong run for the Democratic nomination in 2016. Sanders, 77, made the announcement in a radio interview in his home state of Vermont on Tuesday.\u00a0 “I am running for president for two…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}