Why Bernie Sanders Is Choice of Business Owners Jeremy Quittner - Inc.
go to original January 31, 2016

U.S. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders (Bernie Sanders Campaign)

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton may be the frontrunners in the race for U.S. president, but it's Bernie Sanders who captures the imagination of many business owners.

That's according to an informal poll that Inc. conducted on Facebook in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses on February 1. In the poll, 41 percent of the 327 Inc. readers who responded said Sanders is the best presidential candidate for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Trump placed second with 27 percent of the vote, while Clinton came in third, with just 13 percent of the vote.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who garnered seven percent, finished in fourth place, followed by Texas senator Ted Cruz, with just three percent. Florida Senator Marco Rubio barely registered, with just 1 percent of the vote.

Curiously, while Sanders has a sizable lead over Trump in this poll, businesspeople weighing in with comments, without exception, said they do not think Sanders is the best man for the job.

"I think Bernie's a helluva guy and has a lot of good ideas, but clearly he missed a couple days of class when they were going over economics at the U. of Chicago," writes Jeremy Thornton, an account executive at Lamar Advertising, a small ad firm in Bridgeport, West Virginia.

Similarly, Gary Rasmussen, a realtor for Silvercreek Realty Group, in Meridian, Idaho, comments: "Bernie knows NOTHING about being an entrepreneur."

Sanders, a self-professed socialist, has captured momentum with voters on the left, much the way Trump has reeled in voters on the right with positions that go against their respective parties' centers. Among other things, Sanders would increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. He would also move the health care system in the U.S. to a single-payer plan, which would free small business owners from the burden of having to pay for such benefits. To pay for the change, however, payroll taxes would increase significantly.

Read the rest at Inc.

Related: Let Us Elect a President Who Will Put Families First...Not Walls (HuffPost)

Related: Simon Carswell: Trump and Sanders Have More in Common Than You Might Think (The Irish Times)

Related: The Untold Story of Bernie Sanders, High School Track Star (The Washington Post)

Related: Run, Bernie, Run (National Observer)

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