[mooby]

One of the biggest reasons I hear people say they don't like Bernie is because his plans are too costly and there's no way they will work. I'll be the first to admit he's got my vote, but it's not because I believe he will be able to implement things like free college and healthcare (although as part of my dream scenario, he would be able to set restrictions on for-profit medical companies and regulate healthcare, so people don't go bankrupt for life if they have an accident without insurance).

My reasons for Bernie having my vote are as follows:

1. Honesty - I'm not trying to spend too much time on this (which is my way of saying if you want sources you can do that), but it is widely known Bernie doesn't take money from corporations, and his campaign is almost entirely funded by small donations. He's not getting insanely high speaking fees from companies with vested interests in maintaining the status quo like Hillary is.

2. Consistency: He's been on the right side of history for years, whether it's the civil rights movement, trumpeting gay rights in the 80's, etc.

3. His goals align with mine (campaign finance reform, legalizing weed ((I mean seriously this should be a no brainer by now - it weakens cartels, provides additional tax revenue, research has shown it has medical benefits for people like me with epilepsy/ptsd sufferers/a lot of athletes use it to help recover from their injuries, etc.)), making healthcare/college affordable, spending less on wars, gun control to an extent, etc.)

I'll wrap up with this: One of the biggest arguments I hear against Bernie is this: His plans for how to achieve his goals are unrealistic, i.e. free college/healthcare, $15/hr minimum wage, etc. My whole argument against this is, if you are Bernie and you know that if you win most likely you will have to prepare for battle with the right over every issue you try to tackle. For example, if you come out initially and say "I want $15 minimum wage" (which you know will never happen) it might sound unrealistic, but if your goal is to negotiate and end up with something more reasonable (like $12/hr minimum wage), then that approach is perfectly fine with me. In the end if that did happen it'd be win-win, because the left would be able to gloat about raising minimum wage and the right would be able to gloat about how they didn't let the left get their insane $15/hr minimum wage. So while he might come out and say things like "free healthcare/college for everyone" even supporters like me don't expect that to happen. But maybe talks progress, and improvement is made, however slight it might be it's better than the alternative where jack shit happens and nobody is happy.