Sanders to run for re-election

Sanders to run for re-election
By Timothy McQuiston
Bernie Sanders has announced that he will run for re-election to a fifth term in Congress, rather than run for the open governor’s seat.
Sanders said at a press conference on November 6 that though he indeed would want to be governor, the pressing needs in Washington, especially after the September 11 terrorist attacks, led him to seek re-election to “a job I love.”
Sanders has run for governor three times, the last in 1986 when he was still mayor of Burlington.
“It’s just not something I can undertake at this time,” Sanders said, thus ending speculation that he might run for the state’s top post. The congressman said he made the final decision the previous weekend.
Along with the terrorist attacks and their aftermath, like the anthrax attacks and war in Afghanistan, Sanders cited other pressing issues that compelled him to stay on Capitol Hill: the economic recession; growing unemployment; and the failure of Congress to renew the Northeast Dairy Compact.
Sanders also reiterated his strong objection to many of the Bush Administration policies before and, especially, after September 11, of which he believes President Bush is taking political advantage. Sanders cited legislation that, on the one hand, damages civil liberties, while on the other gives economic benefits to the wealthy, neither of which have anything to do with combating terrorism.
Sanders, wearing an American flag pin on his lapel, also noted that a lot of the new heros of the nation aren’t movie stars or politicians, they are working people like the firefighters who climbed the stairs of the World Trade Towers, and police officers and postal workers, who provide a public service everyday.
With his step-daughter, Carina Driscoll, representing his campaign office and running the press conference, and his wife, Jane Sanders, sitting behind him, a packed conference room at his Burlington office heard a confident Sanders state in that familiar Brooklyn baritone: “I’m proud, very, very proud to represent Vermont in Congress.”
Given his track record, he should have little trouble convincing Vermont voters to send him back to Washington on his 61st birthday next November 11.