Waste over 50 Million Dollars for candidates and specifically with the Bernie Sanders campaign we endorsed very early, raised one point 8 million for him. Members participated in 115,000 phone banks. 75 billionm to make phone calls during the course of the campaign which is an outrageously awesome number and one of the reasons the media was not capable of killing the campaign. We played a very important part in their that we really appreciated being able to do and it seems like the perfect way to continue on the work of what democracy for america is all about which is about fighting a strategy of battling up and down the country. What we are here for today is the next steps for the Political Revolution. We have some great candidates, bernie is no longer a candidate the presidency well, i guess technically that will be true in a few weeks but technically since he endorsed hillary i think we can say that confidently. But we have Political Revolution candidates up and down the pellet in a position to make headway for the Political Revolution as soon as the Upcoming Elections happening right now. That said, this is a longterm movement. If you look at what democracy for america has done, this is 12 years later after a similar exciting grassroots president ial campaign that motivated and empowered the grassroots across this country. We are still around 12 years later and we are bigger than ever and doing an incredible work. I am excited to see what happens is the revolution moves forward. We only one in one state, aboutt and well had 500,000 people at our largest point. For example on our email list. Andad Sanders Campaign win 22 states and a blind people and 75 my calls. I mean, they not on 5 million doors. That is pretty amazing. Imagine what that will mean as we move forward. I want to put some questions to our panelists. They are pretty straightforward. I would like to start with alex. Can lesson do you think we learn from the Sanders Campaign as we move forward right now and maybe longterm. Thatwas 80 biggest lesson i learned from both starting off as a volunteer and entering the inpaign is to have trust grass roots organizing and your volunteers. Not bevement would possible without the millions of people and volunteers that stepped up and demanded change. So regardless if bernie is not our president , it sets a resident of that to grassroots organizing, at least in my lifetime and the generation that was able to watch bernie and hillary debate, it shows that people are powerful and if anything it is to make sure i emphasize the amount of trust we had within the Bernie Sanders campaign and relied on grassroots volunteers to do the bulk of the work. Great. Similarly a, you are running for congress locally here against lacy clay, right . What are some of the lessons you feel like you have learned from the Sanders Campaign that you could apply directly to the campaign you are running right now. I love this question. Heres what i would say. Toreal and like, talk people. Have a relationship with people on the ground and communicate translate. So, something that happened, i think you all know about it, it is called ferguson, right . The ferguson uprising. Our congressmen did not show up until four days after tear gassing, four days after burnings buildings. Breakake a fiveweek every single august. I am dealing with a challenger who is riding on the coattails of his father. Between the two of them they have served for 48 years in congress. That is one family that has served for 38 years. So when things went down in our community that was like one of my first wakeup calls that we have some serious, serious issues that are going on and we who is need someone present. Someone who is willing to communicate the challenges that people live every single day and to be unafraid to communicate those challenges. So when i said in the very beginning, the real, like people want to hear the truth. So despite who you paris off people are going to be thankful for that. You need to tell me when to shut that the share. 39 hour filibuster this year on a gbp rights. Thank you. Applause] crisis,t into another radioactive waste that has been in our community for about seven decades. Has not congressman done anything. So i was like a surveying as a School Board Member and eight representative because i wanted to give extra time. I resigned from the school board when i found out the number of cancer clusters we have in the area that i represent and he represents. Then all of a sudden we get this up call, criticalnothing more than having an Absentee Congress member. You know, he grew up in maryland. He went to Elementary School in maryland, he went to middle school in maryland, he went to high school in maryland. He went to college in maryland and then all of a sudden there was a seat that was open in st. Louis and he ran for a special election. And then there was another seat that was open and he ran for a special election. And then his dad resigned in then he ran for congress. So he is been living in maryland for quite a long time. You know, what i think is important about what Bernie Sanders brought to the table is you should always be with the people and speak the truth and if you make a mistake here and there, you are speaking the language of the people. Never be afraid of speaking the limits of the people because someone will understand and we deal with racial issues pretty badly here in st. Louis and in missouri and i thought it one point in time there were a lot of white oaks it were upset with me for translating the issues that my constituents work concerned with but what i found out was that they were also grateful for me standing. Because they saw that the silence we had been living and breathing from quite a long time is the same type of silence they had been dealing with when it came to radioactive waste contamination where older and are getting sick. Sorry. I was not trying to cut you off but i think one of the things youre saying, you are saying it is not just about truth youre also saying it is about action. When you have somebody that is in upton tea not getting done what they need to get done, it is time to have someone stand up and take action and do work which makes a lot of sense. You know, i think one of the things barriersmashing about the Bernie Sanders campaign is the way in which a repetitively over and over again broke conventional wisdom. One of the big ways i think conventional wisdom was broke was this concept that you have to run to the middle to get independence. Instead we saw that actually independence once to hear a bold difference. When you look at the victor in new hampshire, it was based on that because it was the tiedendent who actually between hillary and burning. I think it is an interesting way in which it smashes conventional wisdom so i think it is a good leadin to betsy. When you talk about utah, you think, this is a red state there is no way liberal could when common away Bernie Sanders supporter could win. Could walk away with that race. I can guess where youre going to head with this but what do you think you can learn from the Bernie Sanders campaign and how will it impact your race as you move forward . What i learned is you have to kind of speak what you believe in. You know, kind of be honest about your beliefs. Do this moderate, you know, talk one thing and say another. Just say, you know, they want honesty from politicians. A lot of people are kind of frustrated, politics as usual. They want to see change. In the state of utah, it is also a young state. If you look at the population 18 and over, 46 are millennials. The youngest state in the nation. Mark millennials in utah than gen xers and baby boomers combined. And baby boomers combined. But but a participation is law. But Voter Participation is low. Forfeiting our government to conservatives, to the longterm, you know, democrats and democratic voters they feel like there is not a choice because Utah Democratic Party for a long time dominated the selfdescribed conservatives who are prolife, antilgbt. They are like, well they are not quite as extreme but then they and up losing by a 30 point margin because they do not appeal. They do not offer an alternative. So it is important to offer a republicans. Ive to we are going to stand up for womens rights, for lgbt, affordable college. To a dressg to try criminal Justice System with unfairly color being incarcerated. Were going to offer a new vision for this country, you know. Look at the future instead of trying to think about old ideas. Saying the things people should say. Utah the the state of guy i run against, mike lee, not that popular. He only has about a 38 approval rating. A lot of people think he is a lock for reelection. I think we will supervise him. Surprise him. Every step of the way, people have underestimated me. He a lot of people thought it would never win the primary and i won by a 19 margin despite being outspent 41. 19 outspent and won by speaking the truth. Withat i said resonated voters. Mike lee, he had like a Million Dollars, which is not a lot for a senate race. A lot of people dont think it is competitive, no donations coming in. I think a lot of people have realized, as a Bernie Sanders movement, the next step in the local revolution is we have to down supporting candidate the ballot. The senator from utah has just as much power over your life as a senator from texas or florida, if we want to change out dialogue as a nation, we need to get my progressive throughout the country know matter where they are from. The more progressive you have in congress, the better the Progressive Agenda and to start fighting for the policies that Bernie Sanders talked about. He was to have 15 minimum wage. Affordable college. We need more progressives in congress. Every victory get is another boat. That is where we need to go. Thank you. [applause] continuing on this theme of this conventional wisdom is the idea that in red states or purple states that somehow democrats win better by being more moderate or more conservative, you know, nobody probably on this panel has probably experienced that conventional wisdom or stronger than congressman alan grayson because he is someone who was elected in washington, d. C. , and is working with the establishment every day. Or against them. What we have seen as being the entire establishment is sort of working against you, like bernie. Talking about your general election opponent yet, were talking about your absolutely terrible opponent in the primary. What do you feel about your learned from the Sanders Campaign that he taking in implementing into your senate race . Im pleased to see that theres an audience for progressivism. The Sanders Campaign is the most successful progressive president ial campaign in the last 50 years. If anything deserves applause, it is that. Right . [applause] it gives us hope that the Democratic Party can so be the home of progressivism. It seems that there is definitely an audience within the party for progressive values of justice, equality and peace. Also, theres also consensus within the swath of the party that the system is rigged and something needs to be done to change that. The second thing i learned from the Sanders Campaign is this, voters want elections to be about something. You know, we have gotten into this right here in america where political discords consists entirely of ad hominem attacks and we end up choosing between the lesser of two evils. There is no doubt that both candidates are evil because all we have seen our negative ads about them for literally weeks upon months before the election takes place. That is something not what people want. One thing people remember about the election is sanders saying emails. Ut the people want to hear about what we need to do to make our lives better collectively and how the locking a cop was that. That is a message that is fundamentally progressive. When the system is broken, we need to take the system over and change the laws and make things better. Thing we learned is this, a democracy is not quite dead yet. We are not quite at the point where the oligarchy gets every single thing at once. What happened with the Sanders Campaign established a new paradigm in the wake of Citizens United regarding campaignfinance and that turned be very important. Before he ran for president , senator sanders was the only member of the senate who raised most of his Campaign Funds from small donors. For two cycles in a row, i was the only house member out of 43. Of us to raise most my Campaign Money from small donors. And now we saw that happen at the president ial level. While the campaign was actually going on, senator sanders out raised everybody else. He out raised donald trump by 71. And of course, that was just trump reaching into his own pocket so that does not really count. So what we see is there is an alternative way to run for president , senate, im the only Senate Candidate whos racing raising most of his money from small donors. 150,000 contributions already. If you want to go to se natorwithguts. Com and make a donation, i will not stop you. [laughter] this is what we need. I see 434und and members who were largely bought by special interests. Lobbyists, multinational corporations, billionaires. People who want something for themselves. Democracy cant survive that way. After the Citizens United decision, when it was rendered, i said that if we do nothing, then you can kiss this country goodbye. The Sanders Campaign is a sign that we are doing something, that there is a possibility that we can have a functional democracy in this country. I find that encouraging. Thank you. [applause] continuing on the theme, what do we need to do to get the catchto get it and to onto the critical aspects of the policy fight. The vision for america. So often the Democratic Party make the decision that im not as bad, look at the other guy, he is terrible. Vote for us. Midterm elections running on political lite instead of on real values. Turn them down. Those are losing battles we have lost over and over again. 2014, we won races where it was a bloodbath across the board but the races we won the ones where we talked about a vision for america. Jeff merkley, al franken, brian schatz. Those are the people who one, right . Andow do we read through make it happen. I think there is little or no hope of that happening. It is appalling to me to see how corporatebod and paid for democrats often control the process. I am a progressive and they want to see a rightwing crowd running. Marco rubio cannot possibly win on the issue so what they do is attack you personally. They are not good at defeating republicans. They do have a certain flair for getting under the skin of democrats. Finding ways to undermine progressive democrats finally run for office and we have seen all along the country. Donna Edwards Campaign is a good example of that. I dont think these people are ever going to wake up and realize that what theyre doing is full us and that they have cost us 900 legislation seats in the country. It is time for a new generation. Somebody like Elizabeth Warren. Who has the courage of her convictions and understand that the public is with us. I introduced a bill than a has 175 cosponsored to expand expand medicare. If you pull this, it is astronomical. So why it is that that instead of adopting Something Like that that the party adopts a platform to extend the bank for Foreign Corporations only . In the same way the Democratic Party is in the process of adopting a platform and thank goodness for barney fighting as hard as he did and for withholding his endorsement as far as he did. Him on forum on the house of representatives and the number one item on the platform is defeating isis. In my district where the average people are an hour, more interested in a 15 minimum wage the and they are in defeating isis. The entire leadership, nancy pelosi, the leadership has been corrupted by money. It is dealing with its own failures. It is not interested in pulling. Pulling. Polling. And interesting poll, that showed that when you actually asked the public where you stand on issues come on solid specific progressive proposals, overwhelmingly the public is with us. The leadership is not with us. We did get a complete and total overhaul. We have to elect new candidates across the board which is why misty is a fantastic example taking on republicans and murray is a fantastic example taking on bad democrats. I feel like you want to Say Something else. Misty could in my lifetime, the most progress the progress that the mermaid was when howard dean was in charge. We need an outsider. [applause] we need an outsider who can come in to the party and to recognize that is in the it is the progressive of values that propel us to victory. Yes. We have candidates here talking about pushing that in new ways and if their candidate who is doing it in an open primary. Then we also have a Brandnew Congress were the actual mission is to replace everybody. Right . So, can you tell us a little bit about how youre planning to do that . Brandnew congress is an idea we can together with it has been in the making for at least a are familiar with zach exley, it was his idea and it snowballed into what