BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Senator Bernie Sanders is making his way to the Commonwealth Saturday, ahead of Massachusetts' Super Tuesday primary.
A free rally will be held on Boston Common at noon. According to the Sanders Campaign, the official address is 139 Tremont Street.
The Vermont senator is also hosting a rally in Springfield Friday night. Sanders' decision to hold two rallies in the Bay State rather than in Super Tuesday states with more delegates—or in South Carolina, which holds a primary Saturday—is seen by some as a direct challenge to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
"Politicians don’t typically do things that are not in their political interest. I don’t think, at this stage of the race, that Bernie’s primary goal is to shame Warren, but I think he’s counting delegates and trying to consolidate the left," former Sen. Scott Brown campaign manager Jim Barnett told The Associated Press.
Sanders is in the lead in the national 2020 primary polls, FiveThirtyEight reports, and led Sen. Warren by one percentage point in Massachusetts in last Friday's UMass Lowell poll.
Last night's democratic primary debate in South Carolina has been met with disappointed responses.
Politico reported in an analysis that the debate "failed" to meet two strategic challenges: for "six Democrats not named Sanders to revive their candidacies" and for the candidates "to convey what most Democrats regard as the gravity of the case against President Donald Trump."
There were also concerns about who was in the audience, which prompted New York Magazine to ask "Who Was Booing Candidates at the South Carolina Democratic Debate?"
When MSNBC asked Sanders about the responses from the debate's crowd, he said, "I read that it cost $1,750, so to get a ticket to the debate you have to be fairly wealthy. Most working people that I know don't spend 17-hundred dollars to get a ticket to a debate, and that's problematic."
The debate also brought up a recent controversy surrounding Sanders, which comes after his comments defending an interview he did in the 1980s in which he had positive remarks about Fidel Castro, Cuba's former leader.
In the 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, Sanders said, "[Castro] had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?"
Sanders has pointed out that his comments echoed those of President Barack Obama.
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