Sanders Promises Free College, Roasts Scott Walker at West Allis Speech

Bernie Sanders used the bulk of his speech in West Allis Tuesday to discuss his key platform issues, including promising free college and pledging to do the exact “opposite” of Scott Walker, while calling the Wisconsin governor “cowardly.”

He stressed that he does not take money from Wall Street corporations and other similar entities for his campaign.

However, he also took some time to make some points about his primary rival Hillary Clinton and Walker, whose mention drew vociferous boos from those in attendance. In contrast, people in the audience applauded the mention of free college.

The Vermont senator came into the week’s campaign in Wisconsin off of a three-state sweep of Clinton in Hawaii, Alaska and Washington. Tuesday, Sanders visited both Appleton and West Allis. Both locations saw overflow crowds, capped off with “about 1,000” outside of the Milwaukee event, according to Sanders.

Sanders told his supporters that if they need to know more about what he would do as president, they should look at Walker’s beliefs and, as Sanders said, “I will do exactly the opposite.”

Trashing Walker

He also mentioned the fact that the Walton family (Wal-Mart) has more money than the bottom 40 percent of the country combined. He then called on “cowardly” Republican governors, including Walker, to get out of politics if they are afraid of “fair and free elections,” in reference to Walker’s controversial voter ID bill.

Sanders showed off his ability to keep a crowd in the palm of his hand at several times during the speech. At one point, the crowd responded with “$27” when asked what Sanders’ average campaign contribution and shouted “unacceptable” along with Sanders in regards to several problems he sees in society. He said that one of these problems is crumbling inner cities, calling on the government to fix cities like Milwaukee instead of fixing Iraq and other countries first.

Then there was the crowd itself. There were plenty of colorful signs, some of which included “Talk Bernie to Me” and “Wisconsin loves cheese, beer, and Bernie.”

The attendees were very diverse, from young to old, coming from seemingly every race, straight and gay, and everything in between. The crowd seemed very passionate about this candidate. Some said they would vote for Clinton in the event Sanders does not win. On the other hand, others had a very different opinion, such as Corey Diesing, a student at MATC. Diesing told Media Milwaukee, “It’s Bernie or bust for me.” Oddly enough, that also made it onto a sign later on.