{"id":108954,"date":"2015-10-08T19:44:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T01:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ride-for-the-bern\/"},"modified":"2015-10-08T19:44:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-09T01:44:28","slug":"ride-for-the-bern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ride-for-the-bern\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Ride for the Bern\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mikel
Mikel Carmon is riding her horse from Cortez to Glenwood Springs to gather support for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mikel Carmon says the country needs Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to lead the way forward.<\/p>\n

To help get the word out on Sanders\u2019 vision for Americans, she\u2019s riding her horse from Cortez to Glenwood Springs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBernie has integrity, and he can\u2019t be bought by big money corporations,\u201d Carmon says of her favorite candidate. \u201cThat is getting pretty rare these days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting out from the Montezuma County fairgrounds last week, Carmon prepared for her \u201cRide for the Bern\u201d political adventure.<\/p>\n

Her trailer is adorned with Bernie for President signs as her horse, Cherokee, rears up then obsessively scratches the ground, eager to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not my first choice because she\u2019s skittish in traffic, but the other one ended up pregnant,\u201d said Carmon, a counselor from Arizona.<\/p>\n

Her plan is to talk to \u201canyone and everyone\u201d about Sanders, the country\u2019s most prominent socialist and long-time U.S. senator of Vermont.<\/p>\n

She admits the conservative Western Slope is not in Sanders\u2019s liberal camp, but is convinced that many Republicans actually agree with his views, but just don\u2019t realize it, or want to admit it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBernie looks out for the working class, he\u2019s got our back, an independent thinker who knows small businesses need support, not tax breaks for big corporations,\u201d she said. \u201cThat aligns with Republican values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take the minimum wage, she said, \u201cit is not enough to live off of,\u201d something Sanders would change as president.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo allow corporations to squeeze profits from the working man trying to support his family is unethical,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Campaign reform is needed, Carmon continued, to end limitless contributions by corporations to candidates, a \u201csell out situation\u201d that is eroding the basis of Democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a citizen, I\u2019m seeing our freedoms go away, our elections are being bought by the billionaires,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Carmon likes Sanders\u2019 commitment to diplomacy instead of war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iraq war was based on false pretenses and damaged America\u2019s credibility,\u201d she said. \u201cNearly a million people were killed and it cost the American taxpayer more than $2 trillion. The mistake further destabilized the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders support for improved veteran health care also aligns with conservative values, Carmon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir lives have been shattered by war, yet they can\u2019t get the care they deserve,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe Sanders can help heal the country, bit by bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carmon is on her way to Rico, then Telluride, Ridgeway, Ouray, Montrose, Delta, Grand Junction, Parachute, Rifle, then ends her trip in Glenwood Springs.<\/p>\n

She needs volunteers to help with logistics and set up speaking engagements. To volunteer for \u201cRide for the Bern,\u201d go to http:\/\/bit.ly\/1WPwnxQ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

campaigns for Bernie Sanders on horseback<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13,299],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-national-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108954"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}