
US Senator Bernie Sanders speaking to a packed house of over 9,000 at the Cross Arena in Portland, Maine on Monday, July 6, 2015. (Common Dreams photo/CC)
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US Senator Bernie Sanders speaking to a packed house of over 9,000 at the Cross Arena in Portland, Maine on Monday, July 6, 2015. (Common Dreams photo/CC)
Maine is a small state--1.3 million. Its largest city is Portland, with a population of 66,000.
Maine is one of the few states where Presidential national delegates are chosen at local caucuses. The Maine Democratic Presidential Caucuses will be held on March 6, 2016--8 months from now. And the General Election is still 16 months away.
Last Monday evening, July 6, Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders brought his surging campaign to the Cross Insurance Arena in downtown Portland, Maine.
The Sanders campaign originally booked Portland's Ocean Gateway, a venue that holds about 800 people standing. Soon, thousands of RSVPs were pouring in and the event was moved to the much larger Cross Insurance Arena.
An hour before the rally's scheduled 7 pm start time, long lines snaked through downtown Portland with thousands waiting to get in. (The Common Dreams offices are just a block away.)
Bernie packed the house. The Bangor Daily Newsreported:
The 2016 election may be 16 months away, but you wouldn't know it from the thousands of people who turned out Monday evening to cheer on Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland.
What was scheduled as a town hall forum had become a full-blown rally by Monday night. Sanders' speech was delayed by 20 minutes as organizers let in the throngs of people still awaiting entry. Estimates pegged the crowd at 8,000 to 9,000 people.
(At 7:15 pm, several of our staff writers were turned away at the doors to the then-full arena; a couple hundred seats behind a curtain were blocked off keeping the turnout number below the 9,500 figure.)
This campaign is catching fire for a simple reason, and the simple reason is we are telling the truth.
--Bernie SandersMaine political circles are still buzzing about the gathering--not just the size of the audience, but the crowd's youthful energy and intensity.
It was epic.
No one we spoke with could remember a recent Maine Democratic rally that could compare. We decided to do some research and found that all the large rallies over the past 25 years were either for sitting U.S. Presidents or just before General Elections/Presidential Caucuses. Here's what we found:
* * * * *
The biggest Democratic rally in Maine's history appears to be the 1960 Election Eve visit to Lewiston by candidate John F. Kennedy on November 6/7, 1960. The Lewiston Evening Journalreported that 14,000 came out for the scheduled 9 pm speech and that 8,000 remained when Kennedy arrived at the rally just before midnight.
The largest Democratic political rallies held in Maine over the past 25 years:
Craig Brown has been the director and co-founder of Portland, Maine based Common Dreams since 1997. Previously, he was Chief of Staff to the progressive former Maine Congressman Tom Andrews.
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Maine is a small state--1.3 million. Its largest city is Portland, with a population of 66,000.
Maine is one of the few states where Presidential national delegates are chosen at local caucuses. The Maine Democratic Presidential Caucuses will be held on March 6, 2016--8 months from now. And the General Election is still 16 months away.
Last Monday evening, July 6, Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders brought his surging campaign to the Cross Insurance Arena in downtown Portland, Maine.
The Sanders campaign originally booked Portland's Ocean Gateway, a venue that holds about 800 people standing. Soon, thousands of RSVPs were pouring in and the event was moved to the much larger Cross Insurance Arena.
An hour before the rally's scheduled 7 pm start time, long lines snaked through downtown Portland with thousands waiting to get in. (The Common Dreams offices are just a block away.)
Bernie packed the house. The Bangor Daily Newsreported:
The 2016 election may be 16 months away, but you wouldn't know it from the thousands of people who turned out Monday evening to cheer on Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland.
What was scheduled as a town hall forum had become a full-blown rally by Monday night. Sanders' speech was delayed by 20 minutes as organizers let in the throngs of people still awaiting entry. Estimates pegged the crowd at 8,000 to 9,000 people.
(At 7:15 pm, several of our staff writers were turned away at the doors to the then-full arena; a couple hundred seats behind a curtain were blocked off keeping the turnout number below the 9,500 figure.)
This campaign is catching fire for a simple reason, and the simple reason is we are telling the truth.
--Bernie SandersMaine political circles are still buzzing about the gathering--not just the size of the audience, but the crowd's youthful energy and intensity.
It was epic.
No one we spoke with could remember a recent Maine Democratic rally that could compare. We decided to do some research and found that all the large rallies over the past 25 years were either for sitting U.S. Presidents or just before General Elections/Presidential Caucuses. Here's what we found:
* * * * *
The biggest Democratic rally in Maine's history appears to be the 1960 Election Eve visit to Lewiston by candidate John F. Kennedy on November 6/7, 1960. The Lewiston Evening Journalreported that 14,000 came out for the scheduled 9 pm speech and that 8,000 remained when Kennedy arrived at the rally just before midnight.
The largest Democratic political rallies held in Maine over the past 25 years:
Craig Brown has been the director and co-founder of Portland, Maine based Common Dreams since 1997. Previously, he was Chief of Staff to the progressive former Maine Congressman Tom Andrews.
Maine is a small state--1.3 million. Its largest city is Portland, with a population of 66,000.
Maine is one of the few states where Presidential national delegates are chosen at local caucuses. The Maine Democratic Presidential Caucuses will be held on March 6, 2016--8 months from now. And the General Election is still 16 months away.
Last Monday evening, July 6, Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders brought his surging campaign to the Cross Insurance Arena in downtown Portland, Maine.
The Sanders campaign originally booked Portland's Ocean Gateway, a venue that holds about 800 people standing. Soon, thousands of RSVPs were pouring in and the event was moved to the much larger Cross Insurance Arena.
An hour before the rally's scheduled 7 pm start time, long lines snaked through downtown Portland with thousands waiting to get in. (The Common Dreams offices are just a block away.)
Bernie packed the house. The Bangor Daily Newsreported:
The 2016 election may be 16 months away, but you wouldn't know it from the thousands of people who turned out Monday evening to cheer on Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland.
What was scheduled as a town hall forum had become a full-blown rally by Monday night. Sanders' speech was delayed by 20 minutes as organizers let in the throngs of people still awaiting entry. Estimates pegged the crowd at 8,000 to 9,000 people.
(At 7:15 pm, several of our staff writers were turned away at the doors to the then-full arena; a couple hundred seats behind a curtain were blocked off keeping the turnout number below the 9,500 figure.)
This campaign is catching fire for a simple reason, and the simple reason is we are telling the truth.
--Bernie SandersMaine political circles are still buzzing about the gathering--not just the size of the audience, but the crowd's youthful energy and intensity.
It was epic.
No one we spoke with could remember a recent Maine Democratic rally that could compare. We decided to do some research and found that all the large rallies over the past 25 years were either for sitting U.S. Presidents or just before General Elections/Presidential Caucuses. Here's what we found:
* * * * *
The biggest Democratic rally in Maine's history appears to be the 1960 Election Eve visit to Lewiston by candidate John F. Kennedy on November 6/7, 1960. The Lewiston Evening Journalreported that 14,000 came out for the scheduled 9 pm speech and that 8,000 remained when Kennedy arrived at the rally just before midnight.
The largest Democratic political rallies held in Maine over the past 25 years:
Craig Brown has been the director and co-founder of Portland, Maine based Common Dreams since 1997. Previously, he was Chief of Staff to the progressive former Maine Congressman Tom Andrews.