By BLAKE APGAR/Murphy News Service

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders did Tuesday night in St. Paul what he’s been doing across the country — firing up crowds  with his populist talking points: ending income inequality, passing legislation for free higher education, raising the minimum wage and overcoming campaign finance hurdles.

And the U.S. senator from Vermont fired up a crowd of about 15,000 all while putting special emphasis on the importance of political involvement.

“No president can address the crises facing our country unless there is a political revolution,” Sanders told a packed St. Paul RiverCentre. About 5,000 Sanders supporters watched along on monitors in a separate overflow room.

Sanders focused heavily on the economy, repeating the same lines that have taken him from a fringe candidate, to legitimate contender to once-presumptive Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton in less than a year.

“The American people are saying loudly and clearly that we need an economy that works for us and not just the 1 percent,” Sanders told the crowd.

Part of the presidential hopeful’s plan to even the economy is to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, he said.

“It is not a radical idea to say that someone who works 40 hours a week should not live in poverty,” he said, receiving a booming applause from an animated crowd.

The self-avowed Democratic socialist also promised that his administration would invest in education and jobs.

Part of those investments would come in the form of free tuition at public colleges and universities. Sanders said he would pay for the estimated annual $70 billion cost of such a program by higher taxes on Wall Street.

Sanders told the crowd that he would also introduce legislation so those who carry student debt can refinance their loans to 3-4 percent interest rates.

He said he would propose a $1-trillion stimulus that would put an estimated 13 million people back to work to renovate infrastructure, an issue he said Minnesotans know all about after the 2007 collapse of the I-35W bridge.

Sanders took jabs at Republicans, but steered clear of explicitly criticizing Hillary Clinton. He did, however, attempt to draw a major distinction between himself and his Democratic counterparts.

“I am proud to say that I am the only candidate running for the Democratic nomination that does not have a Super PAC,” he said, adding he would only appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who promised to overturn the court’s Citizens United decision that paved the way for the Super PACs.

The speech resonated with adjunct assistant professor John Hourdos, who teaches civil engineering at the University of Minnesota.

Hourdos said the event was his first political rally in 21 years of living in the United States.

“I wanted to see this wonderful man up close,” he said.

Hourdos, from Greece, said he liked Sanders’ stance on free tuition at public colleges.

“I haven’t paid a dime for my education,” he said. “It’s not about how much money you have, it’s about how bright you are.”

Sanders is currently 34 points behind Clinton in Minnesota,  a recent Star Tribune poll showed, but he is neck and neck with Clinton in Iowa with the caucuses there set for next Monday, Feb. 1

Minnesota will caucus on March 1.

Blake Apgar is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.