美国国家公共电台 NPR Bernie Sanders Launches 2020 Presidential Campaign, No Longer An Underdog

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Senator Bernie Sanders is giving it another run. He announced this morning in an interview with Vermont Public Radio that he is launching a campaign for president in 2020.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

BERNIE SANDERS: We began the political revolution in the 2016 campaign, and now it's time to move that revolution forward and make sure that those - that vision, those ideas are implemented¹ into policy.

GREENE: The Vermont senator led a massive progressive movement as he challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination³ in 2016, and he will need to reconstitute that again to win in 2020. NPR's Scott Detrow is covering the 2020 campaign. He's with us.

Hi there, Scott.

SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE⁴: Good morning.

GREENE: All right. So there was some uncertainty⁵ for some time about whether Sanders would actually do this. He's now making it official. So why is he running this time?

DETROW: Well, he's making an argument that if you look at how we ran in 2016, he was criticized by a lot of Democrats⁶ for being too extreme, not realistic in the policies he was talking about. Three years later, a big chunk⁷ of the Democratic Party has signed on to a lot of his proposals, things like "Medicare for All," a $15 minimum wage. You know, nearly everyone else running for president is campaigning on those policies.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SANDERS: We intend to run a campaign which stands up for working people, whether they're black or white, Latino, Native American, Asian American. We are going to run a campaign which tells the people on top that their greed has got to end, they cannot get it all. We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. We cannot continue to have three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of the American people, cannot continue to have kids unable to afford to go to college, 30 million people without health insurance, family farmers going out of business. We can do a lot better.

DETROW: You know, the field running is very diverse. It's much younger, and Bernie Sanders is older. He's 77 years old. And of the six U.S. senators to announce they're running for president, he's the first white male to jump into the race. But Sanders is a top contender this time. Along with former Vice⁸ President Joe Biden, he's leading or No. 2 in nearly every poll so far.

GREENE: You have to believe he's been at least laying the groundwork for giving him the option to do this since 2016. So what has he been doing to make sure that that movement kept its momentum⁹?

DETROW: You know, a lot. He never actually joined the Democratic Party and still won't. But he did become a member of the Democratic leadership of the Senate. He took a high-profile role in a lot of public fights, including trying to stop the Republican Obamacare repeal¹⁰. He was doing a lot of campaigning the last few years. And one early sign to me that he was not only serious about running again but trying to win was that, you know, he was really knocked by Hillary Clinton in her campaign for not taking foreign policy seriously in 2016, not really ever talking about it.

Over the last couple of years he's made a very concerted push to have more to say on foreign policy, give a lot of speeches on that front. And if you recall a couple months ago when the U.S. Senate voted to try and force the U.S. out of involvement in the war in Yemen, it was actually Bernie Sanders who led that push, who authored that bill.

GREENE: Scott, I mean, it's a good thing for Sanders that so many other candidates have come sort of to his message. But couldn't that also be a bad thing for Sanders if the field is much more crowded now than the field he had in 2016?

DETROW: Absolutely. And go back to that point that nearly every other Democrat² running for president is campaigning on "Medicare for all." Now you know, if you're a progressive voter, you have options. You can't just - it's not just Sanders out there offering that. You have a lot of different choices running on a lot of the exact same things that he's run on for years. So he's going to have to carve out a space in a much more crowded and progressive field than he had before. And that's going to be a lot bigger challenge than last time.

GREENE: NPR's Scott Detrow talking us about the news that Bernie Sanders is running for president again in 2020.

Thanks, Scott.

DETROW: Sure thing.

1 implemented   

v.实现( implement的过去式和过去分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效

参考例句：

• This agreement, if not implemented, is a mere scrap of paper. 这个协定如不执行只不过是一纸空文。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The economy is in danger of collapse unless far-reaching reforms are implemented. 如果不实施影响深远的改革，经济就面临崩溃的危险。 来自辞典例句

2 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

3 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

6 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 chunk   

n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量）

参考例句：

• They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.他们必须当心大块浮冰。
• The company owns a chunk of farmland near Gatwick Airport.该公司拥有盖特威克机场周边的大片农田。

8 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

9 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

10 repeal   

n.废止，撤消；v.废止，撤消

参考例句：

• He plans to repeal a number of current policies.他计划废除一些当前的政策。
• He has made out a strong case for the repeal of the law.他提出强有力的理由，赞成废除该法令。