The Atlantic: Sanders and Kennedy at Liberty, 32 years apart

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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/bernie-sanders-ted-kennedy-liberty-university/405469/

While Sanders steered clear of those issues until the question-and-answer part of his appearance, he made a much more assertive case for liberal economic policies. Indeed, what was most notable about his speech to the conservative Liberty crowd was how little he deviated from the core message of his candidacy. Sanders sought directly to enlist the support of evangelicals in his fight against income inequality, framing his support for the poor in moral terms. ...

Sanders returned to the concept of “justice” throughout his nearly 30-minute speech. “In my view, there is no justice, and morality suffers when in our wealthy country, millions of children go to bed hungry,” he said. “That is not morality and that is not in my view is not what America should be about.”

Along with other Democratic politicians, Sanders has cited approvingly the critique of financial greed by Pope Francis, and he did so again at Liberty. Kennedy, by contrast, spoke during an era when the poor were often blamed for their lot in life, and he made only a glancing reference to the idea of helping the needy as a moral imperative. “We are sometimes told that it is wrong to feed the hungry, but that mission is an explicit mandate given to us in the 25th chapter of Matthew,” he said.

Just because Sanders felt confident enough to deliver a progressive stump speech to conservatives at Liberty University doesn’t mean that he was effective in winning them over. He received enthusiastic cheers from some in the crowd of nearly 12,000 throughout his speech, but the loudest and lengthiest ovation of the appearance came not when Sanders was speaking, but when Liberty’s senior vice president, David Nasser, pressed him on whether his desire to care for the nation’s children extended to those “in the womb.” Sanders responded by appealing to the conservative belief in limited government as an argument for leaving the question of abortion to women and their doctors. It received a much more subdued reaction. ,,,