2014 - Sen. Bernie Sanders, Keynote Speaker - 10th Anniversary of PDA and Tim Carpenter

[Donkees]

Published on May 25, 2014
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Keynote Speaker - 10th Anniversary of PDA and Tim Carpenter
Northampton, MA - May 10th, 2014

Senator Bernie Sanders was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 after serving 16 years in the House of Representatives. He is the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history. Born in 1941 in Brooklyn, Bernie was the younger of two sons in a modest-income family. After graduation from the University of Chicago in 1964, he moved to Vermont. Early in his career, Sanders was director of the American People's Historical Society. Elected Mayor of Burlington by 10 votes in 1981, he served four terms. Before his 1990 election as Vermont's at-large member in Congress, Sanders lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at Hamilton College in upstate New York. The Almanac of American Politics has called Sanders a "practical" and "successful legislator." He has focused on the shrinking middle class and widening income gap in America that is greater than at any time since the Great Depression. Other priorities include reversing global warming, universal health care, fair trade policies, supporting veterans and preserving family farms. He serves on five Senate committees: Budget; Veterans; Energy; Environment; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. He chairs the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

http://pda.nationbuilder.com/on_this_day_we_remember_tim_carpenter

Progressive Democrats of America's founder Tim Carpenter passed away just over two years ago. This Memorial Day, we honor his legacy, including his founding the Healthcare Not Warfare campaign. I was honored to co-chair that effort. After a lifetime of fighting for progress, Tim had one last battle in him. He almost single-handedly launched the Run Bernie Run effort in 2013, and relentlessly urged Bernie Sanders to run for president as a Democrat.

Ever since, we’ve been pouring our time, energy, and resources into first persuading Bernie to run as a Democrat, and then into making Bernie's political revolution the powerful force it is today. A profoundly modest person, Tim wouldn't have let us explain this, but credit where credit is due: None of that would've happened without Tim Carpenter's vision and courage.

[Donkees]

1. 'A Time To Remember The Origins Of Bernie 2016'

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Joanne Boyer

Excerpt:

It is not a stretch of the imagination to say that without Tim Carpenter there simply would not be Bernie 2016. In hindsight, it’s as though Tim Carpenter knew that one of his last efforts just might be the biggest and best yet of all the incredible things he had done in an all too brief life. Believing the impossible was possible is what motivated Tim Carpenter and his work with PDA. The little engine that could, that was Tim. Healthcare not warfare; clean and transparent elections; stopping voter suppression; ending corporate rule. Pick any of the impossible issues facing us today and Tim was there fighting the good fight. But it was on the eve of PDA’s 10-year anniversary celebration set for May 2014 that Tim, who had struggled with health issues his entire life, reached for the stars with one of his boldest ideas yet.

In spring 2014 with Carpenter’s health rapidly failing, he began a PDA-led drive with CredoMobile to garner 25,000 signatures urging Sen. Sanders to run for President in 2016 as a Democrat. The signatures would be presented to Sanders, the scheduled keynote speaker at the PDA 10-year anniversary celebration.

“Tim was the one who got Bernie to come speak at PDA’s 10-year anniversary, which we turned into the first “Run Bernie Run” event,” remembered Steve Cobble, co-founder of PDA. “In his last few days, Tim was still working the phones (for support for Bernie). There was no one like him.”

And then, just days before the 10-year anniversary celebration scheduled for Northampton on May 10, 2014, the sad news emerged. Tim Carpenter succumbed to his long battle with cancer on April 28. In a moving tribute to Carpenter, The Nation Magazine’s John Nichols wrote:

Not many hours before I learned that he had passed, Tim was on the phone with me, running through the latest numbers from a national petition drive he and PDA had organized to urge Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to seek the presidency. They were over 10,500. A few hours after the call, he e-mailed me, with more numbers. They were over 11,000. That was typical Tim. His enthusiasm for politics was immeasurable, and infectious.

Tim Carpenter told us in 2013:

“At the end of the day it’s going to be about the journey. Most of the work we’re doing, we’re not going to see the end results in our lifetime. But it’s important that we reach those markers and celebrate the victories like passing a bill, or getting more co-sponsors to a bill. It’s by pulling together that we have those major victories…”

http://wisdomvoices.com/a-time-to-remember-the-origins-of-bernie-2016/

[SamKnause]

2. I love Bernie !!!