What Real Leaders Are About

"As a leader you do what you can do. For Vermont, I use my office to do what other members of Congress do, trying to bring money back home and to vote the right way. But, unlike many other members of Congress, we also use our office to educate and organize. When people say Vermont is a progressive state, they have to understand that it wasn't always that way. There are a number of factors involved in that, but one of them is that we have held hundreds of town meetings, both congressional and campaign, in smaller towns and larger cities throughout the state. In Vermont we held the first congressional town meetings in the country on corporate control over the media and the USA Patriot Act.

At a meeting last week in Springfield, Vermont, more than 250 people came out to talk about poverty. We use our office to educate and organize and to bring people together to discuss some of the most important issues facing this country. When people get the opportunity to talk about the real issues, it becomes clear how vacuous the present agenda is. I have never met anyone in Vermont who thinks it's a good idea to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut back on health care and education. Nobody. It's only when political consciousness is very low and people aren't talking about the real issues that somebody with a straight face can present the Bush agenda."

Sanders Steps Up