Bernie Sanders, business genius? Yes, actually

[Uncle Joe]

Could Bernie Sanders, a self-described "democratic socialist" and Wall Street's biggest critic, be an entrepreneurial genius?

A closer look at the ideas and methods propelling the 'Feel the Bern' phenomenon, and interviews with entrepreneurial experts, show that the Sanders campaign has displayed plenty of business smarts tailored to today's market. His renewed momentum after a win this week in Wisconsin — making it 7 out of the last 8 contests for the Vermont senator — has been built on age-old entrepreneurial tricks and business trends that Sanders has turned into a large, vocal and "profitable" slice of the U.S. electorate.

To start — and to cover quickly what should by now be obvious — while Hillary Clinton and Republican candidates receive "handouts" from corporations and billionaire donors, Sanders has managed his campaign like an entrepreneurial start-up, funding it from the ground up.

After rejecting all super PAC support and special-interest money, Sanders focused heavily on small money donations. President Obama's original run for the Oval Office set this trend, but Sanders recently broke fundraising records with more than 6 million individual contributions, almost tripling the record set by Obama in 2011.

(snip)

"An entrepreneur is someone who understands a particular market segment, who can energize that base and who can get it to take action," said Lyneir Richardson, executive director of The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at Rutgers Business School.

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"With disruptive companies, in the broader sense, what occurs is that they shift some constraint or parameter that has allowed an industry to behave a certain way for a long time," said Rita Gunther McGrath, professor at Columbia Business School. "In politics, those parameters are that you had to have paid media coverage and you had to have huge cash flow from the beginning," McGrath said (she also stressed her views should not be read as an endorsement of Sanders as a candidate).

(snip)

Sanders has had the strongest support with millennials, because he speaks directly to the issues that affect them, like job insecurity and student debt. "His campaign is disruptive not only with the market that it's cornered but also in the sense that [Sanders] is appealing to neglected 'customers' by raising issues that other candidates have not focused on — at least, not until after he did," the Columbia Business School professor said.

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Noted New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote, "I'd take Sanders more seriously if he would stop bleating about breaking up the big banks and instead breathed life into what really matters for jobs: nurturing more entrepreneurs and starter-uppers."

Friedman failed to notice what the entrepreneurial experts see within the campaign's success story. Furthermore, the Times' columnist disregarded specific Sanders' platform issues that support entrepreneurs and small business.

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http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/07/bernie-sanders-business-genius-yes-actually.html

This is a good article.

[amborin]

1. K&R

[Armstead]

2. From the Nation magazine in 2012

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-does-bernie-sanders-do-it/

How Does Bernie Sanders Do It?
No TV ads, no fancy consultants. The staunchly progressive Vermont senator is coasting toward re-election by talking about real issues, listening to voters and organizing.

By John NicholsT

.....Both major parties focused on a narrow set of issues, and an even narrower set of appeals directed to a conventional wisdom that imagined Americans wanted only drab variations on the moderate themes sounded by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in their last debate.

But up in Vermont, one of the most refreshingly unconventional politicians in America was coasting toward re-election with a campaign that broke all the rules. A week before the election, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders had run no attack ads. In fact, he hadn’t run any TV commercials. He was still speaking in full sentences, not soundbites; still inviting voters to ask complicated questions on controversial issues—and still answering with big, bold proposals to address climate change, really reform healthcare with a single-payer “Medicare for All” program, steer money away from the Pentagon and toward domestic jobs initiatives, and counter the threat of plutocracy posed by Citizens United by amending the Constitution. Rejecting the empty partisanship of the pre-election frenzy, Sanders was ripping the austerity agenda of Romney and Paul Ryan, while warning that Obama and too many Democrats were inclining toward an austerity-lite “grand bargain” that would make debt reduction a greater priority than saving Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.


And Sanders was winning—big. A poll conducted by the Democratic Party of Vermont had the independent senator with a 69–21 lead over his rival, Republican John MacGovern, a businessman and four-term Massachusetts state legislator who promised to replace “the only admitted socialist in the US Senate.”

Sanders was ahead among women and men, across income and education categories, and in every region. “I go crazy with all these Democrats saying you have to go conservative to win, you have to go cautious to win. These damned consultants come in and say, ‘This is how you have to run,’ and it’s always the same: raise money, spend it on television, don’t say anything that will offend anyone. And the Democrats do it and then they end up in tight races, worried about whether they’ll make it,” says Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats but rarely takes advice from anyone in Washington. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why progressives listen to consultants. Building movements, making progress on progressive issues— you have to talk to people, educate people, organize people.”

So Sanders took the money he raised for his re-election campaign and put it into an energetic door-knocking project that began long before other candidates were running TV ads. .....MORE

[Uncle Joe]

3. Thanks for the addition, Armstead.

[Armstead]

5. you're welcome (kick)

[FlatBaroque]

4. Mr. Friedman Unit

LMAO

[Ferd Berfel]

6. Great article

Thanks UJ!
good to have a serious article today - compared to the Clinton 'shock & awe' machine that is working OT here today -

They're REALLY apoplectic today

"Bernie is a true democratic revolutionary who's running his campaign in a way that's never been done before. And he's just barely scratched the surface," Cohen said.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Thank you, Ferd Berfel.

[RiverLover]

7. R&K

Fascinating look at branding.

Thanks for posting!!

[snowy owl]

9. the Times' columnist disregarded specific Sanders' platform issues that support entrepreneurs, sm b

Friedman not well-acquainted with Bernie's campaign. But then, he's the establishment darling

[Uncle Joe]

10. Go figure?

Peace to you, snowy owl.