Tuesday, April 26, 2016 Huntington feels the Bern: Sanders visits WV

HUNTINGTON — Even rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of supporters for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as thousands lined Veterans Memorial Boulevard waiting for a chance to hear the presidential candidate speak at Big Sandy Superstore Arena.

“The masses are assembled for positive change,” said Nick Johnson, 27, of Nicholas County. Johnson was carrying a wooden sign that read “Don’t fall for Trump change, make a real movement for revolution, Appalachia needs y’all.” He said he wouldn’t be allowed to take it inside the arena. Johnson, whose right hand was dotted with black paint from making the sign, said he was at the rally because he feels like the Sanders campaign is making steps toward positive change. He said he is a socialist and that Sanders, also a socialist, is the best candidate in the field.
Susan Ofsa, 58, of Pipestem, is an elementary school teacher. Her gray hair stood out from the rest of the crowd and she had Sanders’ wild white hair and thick glasses painted on her face in a silhouette. Sanders isn’t far enough to the left for her, but he’s close. “I think he’s going to help the whole country and we’re just going to go right along with it,” she said. Ken Smith, a Huntington resident, has been casting his vote for Democratic candidates for decades. He has voted in every election since 1988, he said. But the 50-year-old said no candidate has ever resonated with him personally like Sanders has. The Vermont senator’s constant focus on income inequality in the United States, Smith said, is an honest representation of the state of the country’s economy.

Donna Morgan, president of West Virginia Public Workers Union Local 170, stood in line with the rest of the avid Sanders supporters, even though she was scheduled to be next to the stage during his speech. She said there was one primary reason she and her fellow union members were out in support of Sanders’ campaign: free health care. If the controversy over public employee benefits in West Virginia has shown one thing, Morgan said, it is that something needs to be done to guarantee quality health insurance for everyone in the country. She called the West Virginia Legislature’s failure to fix public employee benefits “beyond ridiculous.” If large corporations were stopped from offshoring their businesses in other countries and hiding profits in foreign accounts, Morgan said following comments made by the Sanders campaign, the country wouldn’t have a problem affording health care for all.
Harry Smith, 67, has worked in a number of businesses in his life, but he’s retired now. He said he thinks the candidate’s platform of free college would help a lot of people. “I think he could bring jobs here,” Smith said. “I think his progressive stance on jobs is going to bring businesses here.” Gabrielle Gardner, another Huntington resident, said she would cast a vote for Sanders because of his support for making public college free for everyone. The practicing speech pathologist, who sported a shirt featuring Sanders petting a cat, said she doesn’t want future generations to be over-burdened by student loan debt, like she is. “I’ll be paying it off till I’m 50, and I don’t want that for my children,” she said.

Matthew White, a native of Beckley, said Sanders’ campaign matches with his beliefs on more affordable college tuition, women’s rights and the need for an increased minimum wage. White, who is attending Marshall University, said he also appreciates the dialogue that the Sanders campaign has put forward regarding the country’s “racial dilemma.”
Jocelyn Hively, a native of Marietta, Ohio, said her family, and especially her father, has always voted Republican. The Marshall University student saw the rally as a chance, for the first time, to gauge her political leanings for herself, instead of relying on the opinions of her parents. “Republican is all I know,” she said, adding that she still wasn’t 100 percent for Sanders. Austin Workman, 18, is a student at Chapmanville Regional High School and was wearing a suit so he could represent his school well. His teachers let him out of class an hour early so he and a friend could drive to the rally from Logan County. He likes Sanders but thinks that, if the Vermont senator doesn’t get the nomination, he’ll vote for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican. “I kind of like different things on both sides,” Chapman said.

When it comes to whom people would vote for if Sanders doesn’t win the nomination, the audience was torn. Raven Stormhall, a 19-year-old Kenova resident who will take part in her first election on May 10, said she supports Sanders because she believes he is a candidate for the people. But her support for Sanders might not translate into support for a Democratic candidate if he doesn’t win the party’s primary. Stormhall’s shirt said it all. The back of the homemade white T-shirt read: “#NeverHillary.” “If Hillary wins the nomination, I will not take part this year,” Stormhall said. “Bernie or bust.” Nicole Koren, Stormhall’s mother, disagreed. If Sanders doesn’t garner enough delegates to win the nomination, she will show up in November to cast her ballot for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton isn’t her favorite candidate, but the alternative of having a Republican in the White House is worse, she said.
Angie Blackwell, 28, also said she’d vote for Clinton, because she didn’t trust any other candidate. “We still need to vote,” Blackwell said. “It’s our right; it’s what people fought for.”
But Pepper Hedden, 73, said she doesn’t want to think about what would happen if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination. “I’ve been around for a long time and seen a lot of changes in this country,” she said, “and this is the change we need right now.”
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Nick Johnson, of Nicholas County, stands outside of the Big Sandy Superstore Arena with his homemade sign before going inside for the rally.



Chris Lorenzini holds out bracelets that say “W.W.B.D,” which stands for What Would Bernie Do, as he sells them to fans waiting in a huge line before the start of the “Future to Believe In” rally for the Bernie Sanders campaign at Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington, on Tuesday, April 26. He and Darrah Hollenbach traveled over 10 hours to Huntington to sell the bracelets that they ordered on their own. They said they plan to directly donate all the funds made from bracelet sales to Bernie Sanders’ campaign.