SCRANTON - The procession of presidential candidates into Northeastern Pennsylvania kicked off Thursday with Bernie Sanders promising revolutionary change if he's elected.

Trailing by double digits among Democrats in state polls, the independent U.S. senator from Vermont took the Scranton Cultural Center stage shortly after noon with more than 1,700 people, overwhelmingly younger, who cheered loudly and chanted, "Bernie, Bernie, Bernie."

"It sounds to me like Scranton is ready for a political revolution," Sanders said, setting off another round of hooting and hollering. "I'm the only candidate who will tell you this. No president can solve or address effectively, the real problems facing the middle class and working families in this country, the elderly, the children unless we have a political revolution."

Sanders was the first of at least three of the five remaining presidential candidates due in Lackawanna County before the primary election Tuesday. Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is set for a rally this afternoon at the Radisson at Lackawanna Station hotel, and Sanders' opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for a rally tonight at Dunmore High School.

Originally billed as a town hall meeting, Sanders' event turned into a rollicking rally that lasted almost an hour as the senator returned to the campaign trail after taking Wednesday off. If anyone expected his Tuesday loss in New York to Clinton drive him from the race, Sanders dismissed the possibility. He told reporters before the rally he would fight until the last primary - June 14 in Washington, D.C. - and then for a progressive agenda at the Democratic National Convention in July, if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination.

During the rally, Sanders gave no hint of quitting either. He spoke of Clinton the way he usually does - contrasting their positions on trade agreements and the Iraq war, both of which he opposes and she favors, and her taking Wall Street contributions while he does not. However, he never went beyond that.

"What this campaign is about is not just electing a president, it is mobilizing our people to exercise their democratic rights," Sanders said. "Understand that in a democracy if we as citizens choose to utilize the power that we have, we can make profound changes. But if we sit back and we look at democracy as a spectator sport ... the rich will continue to get richer, everybody else will get poorer."

He called for reforms that end "a corrupt campaign finance system" that controls Congress and benefits the rich and for making voting easier. He called for expanding Social Security by raising the payroll tax on the wealthy, providing "Medicare for all" to ensure health care for all, emphasizing renewable energy and preschool for more children.

"This is the United States of America, and you tell me why we can't have the best pre-K system in the world," he said to more cheers. "I believe that health care is a right."

He repeated his call for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. He scolded the Walton family for spawning a department store chain, Wal-Mart, that forces people to seek food stamps because wages don't cover daily expenses.

"Who pays for the Medicaid and food stamps that Wal-Mart employees use?" he asked.

"We do," the crowd responded.

"A rigged economy is when the middle class subsidizes the wages of the wealthiest family in America," Sanders said. "So I say to the Walton family, get off of welfare."

During his call for free tuition at public colleges and universities by taxing Wall Street speculation, he recounted stories of doctors, dentists and others who finish college and end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

"My friends, that is nuts," he said. "This is the United States of America, why are we punishing our young people for getting an education?

"Is this a radical idea?" he asked.

"No," the crowd responded.

In referring to the multiple international free-trade agreements that he opposed and Clinton supported, Sanders remembered some local plants that closed since 2000, costing thousands of jobs when their work moved out of the country - Thomson Consumer Electronics in Dunmore and the McKinney Products hinge plant in Moosic.

"And on and on and on," he said.

He urged the crowd to change that. A century ago, he said, exploited workers formed unions that fought for gains that created the middle class and women fought hard for the right to vote and work. More recently, gay people fought for same-sex marriage while workers fought for a higher minimum wage and succeeded in places like Seattle, California and New York, he said.

"There is nothing that I have said to you this afternoon that is radical, there is nothing that I have said to you that does not exist in many other countries around the world or in fact used to exist right here in the United States of America," Sanders said. "What our job is, as a people, is to tell the establishment, the big-money interests, the wealthy campaign contributors to Congress that the status quo is not working for working Americans. We demand change."

bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com