Sanders as a third-party candidate.....might it work?

[Peter Lemkin]

[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 84%"][TABLE="class: wwscontent, width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 35%"]
[/TD]
[TD="width: 15%"]opednews.com[/TD]
[TD="width: 50%, align: right"]4/28/16[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[TD="width: 16%"] [/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 16%"]

[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

There's speculation that Bernie might run as a third party candidate, possibly as a Green. Dave Lindorff has written an excellent article:
The push to make Sanders the Green Party candidate: Bernie Sanders' Real 'Political Revolution' Could Happen This Fall

Is this a crazy idea? Let's think about this.


Money-- my guess is that more will come in than before.

Media-- the mainstream media will kick the sh*t out of Bernie, but they will have to give him airtime. When he's not in their face, and when he is, they will diss him, distort and lie.

Endorsements-- not many but who needs corpo-shill members of congress who sell out. Some major newspapers, perhaps many will endorse him.
Campaign team, staffers and resources. He's already built it.

Down-ticket candidates: he'll endorse progressive Democrats and help independents, if they are lucky.




Leave out the southern states, which Bernie and Hillary will lose anyway in the general election. Bernie can beat Hillary in the other states, where there were open primaries and would have beaten her in the ones that were closed.


Running for Senator in a rural state, Bernie pulled 70% of independents and 25% of Republicans, So, let's play with some numbers:


I predict:
Bernie Will get:
70% of the 40% of voters who are independent= 28%
35% of the 30% of voters who are Democrat = 10.5%
15% of the 30% of voters who are Republicans= 4.5%
so Bernie will get 43% total


That leaves Hillary and Donald to fight over 57% of the balance of voters.


Trump will probably get
70% of the remaining 12% who are independents 8.4%
90% of remaining 25.5% who are Republicans (some will stay home, some will vote for Hillary) 22.95%
10% of the remaining 19.5% who are Democrats 1.95%
total 33.3%

the surplus-- these total out to


Hillary will get about
9% of the remaining who are independents 3.6%
90% of the remaining 19.5% of Dems after Bernie 17.55%
10% of remaining Republicans after Bernie 2.55%
total 23.70


Even if you take away 10% from my estimates for Bernie, and give them to Trump and Clinton, Bernie still wins.


I'll throw in another game changer. What if Elizabeth Warren runs as Bernie's VP and Bernie promises to step down after one term so she can run in four years? If not Warren, Bernie will come up with a GREAT VP. (If he runs as a Green, I don't think Jill Stein, though I respect her and voted for her in 2012, would be the best VP choice.)


Bottom line, I'd rather click on a Sanders green party option on the ballot than write him in. Or better, if the buzz about Bernie going thrird party really builds, it may scare the Democratic establishment enough so the superdelegates into sanity, so they make Bernie the Democratic choice.




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 84%"]

The push to make Sanders the Green Party candidate: Bernie Sanders' Real 'Political Revolution' Could Happen This Fall

By Dave Lindorff
[TABLE="class: wwscontent, width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 35%"]
[/TD]
[TD="width: 15%"][/TD]
[TD="width: 50%, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[TD="width: 16%"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 16%"]

[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

By Dave Lindorff

A Sanders-Stein Green dream ticket or just a dream? Activists working to make it happen

Philadelphia -- Bernie Sanders, to the consternation of critics in the Democratic Party, pundits in the corporate media, and purists on the hard left, has accomplished an amazing thing. Up against Hillary Clinton, surely the biggest, best-funded corporate-backed candidate the Democratic leadership has run since Walter Mondale lost to Ronald Reagan in 1984 over three decades ago, the once obscure independent Vermont senator has battled Clinton to almost a draw, down by only some 319 delegates with nearly 900 to go (not counting the corrupt "super delegates" chosen for their fealty to party leaders, not by primary or caucus voting.)
By doing this well, as a proudly declared "democratic socialist" who on the stump has been denouncing the corruption of both the US political and economic systems, and as a candidate who has refused to take corporate money or money from big, powerful donors, instead successfully funding his campaign with only small two and three-digit donations from his supporters, Sanders has exposed not just his opponent, Hillary Clinton, but the entire Democratic Party leadership and most of its elected officials as nothing but hired corporate tools posing as progressive advocates of the people.
But now Sanders faces a truly momentous choice. Defeated by the combined assault of a pro-corporate mass media and by the machinations of the Democratic Party leadership -- machinations both long-established with the intent of defeating upstarts and outsiders, like front-loading conservative southern states in the primary schedule, and current, like scheduling only a few early candidate debates and then slotting them at times (like opposite the Super Bowl) when few would be watching them -- Sanders knows that barring some major surprise like a federal indictment of Clinton, a market collapse, or perhaps a leak of the transcripts of Clinton's highly-paid but still secret speeches to some of the nation's biggest banks, he is not going to win the Democratic nomination.
So does he, after spending months hammering home the reality that Clinton is the bought-and-paid candidate of the the banks, the arms industry, the oil industry and the medical-industrial complex, and after enduring endless lies about his own record spouted by Clinton and her surrogates, go ahead and endorse her as the party's standard bearer for the general election? Does he walk away and return quietly to Vermont? Or does he instead continue to fight for his "political revolution" by another route?
The first and even the second option would mean the demise of his so-called "political revolution." A Sanders endorsement of Clinton at this point would be a pathetic betrayal of all the energy and money that his fired-up backers have poured into this extraordinary campaign, and it would send a message that fighting against the nation's ruling elite is impossible, at least through the ballot box. It would also be pointless. Some 25-30 percent of Sanders backers, according to pollsters, have made it clear that they will not support Clinton no matter what -- including if Sanders were to endorse her. That in itself could be enough to doom her candidacy. Furthermore, after all his well-grounded attacks on the corrupt funding of her campaign, and of her horrific record as senator and secretary of state, any endorsement he made would be seen as a joke. He would spend the next three and a half months of the general election running from reporters asking him if he "takes back" the things he had said about her earlier -- her crooked speech fees from Goldman Sachs and other big banks, her default advocacy of disastrous wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, etc. Most seriously, endorsing Hillary after all that earnest, heartfelt campaigning, would be a huge blow to his millions of backers and his "movement."
Just shutting up and going home, with no endorsement for Clinton, would be almost as bad, leaving his movement leaderless and thoroughly demoralized, and he'd still be besieged by journalists seeking to have him either diss or endorse Clinton.
The third option Sanders has though, is to continue his run for president, but not as a Democrat. And that option could be explosive and even revolutionary this election year, depending on how he did it.
Most states have deadlines for candidates seeking to get a ballot line as an independent candidate that are earlier than the Democratic convention in July, so running as an independent would be impossible. And a write-in campaign would be even more hopeless. But there is another option: Running as the presidential nominee of the Green Party, which already has a ballot line on 25 states and which doesn't hold its nominating convention until August, after both the Democratic and the Republican conventions are over.
Could Sanders run as a Green? Some of his supporters are already talking about the idea. So, it turns out, are members of the Green Party. Apparently even Dr. Jill Stein, a past presidential candidate of the Green Party and its likely candidate this year, as well as Kshama Sawant, the hugely popular socialist city councilwoman in Seattle who led that city's activists' successful fight to pass a $15/hour wage law, are writing a letter to Sanders inviting him -- urging him -- to enter into discussions with the Green Party about running as its presidential candidate. Stein is apparently even willing to step aside and perhaps run as his vice presidential running mate if he were to do so. (Sawant has made an excellent argument for why Sanders and the Greens should do this. She also has a petition on line for people to join in the call. It already has over 17,000 signatures.)
Will Sanders seize this opportunity to continue the fight? If he is serious about inspiring a political revolution, he must. He has said he does not want to be a spoiler "like Ralph Nader" and help elect Donald Trump or some other Republican. But would that be the result of a three-way race with Sanders running as a Green? Not necessarily. In the first place, the claim that votes for Nader led to George W. Bush's 2000 victory over Al Gore is bogus. Gore lost because he embarrassingly failed to win his own state of Tennessee. As well, it is clear that it was a corrupt Republican Supreme Court that by a 5-4 vote halted the count in Florida that handed that state's electoral votes to Bush. It has been shown that continued counting and challenges to improperly rejected ballots would clearly have given Florida to Gore.
More importantly, 2016 is not 2000. The public this year is clearly sick of the two major parties, and disgusted by the undemocratic nature of the primaries. Incredibly, both Trump and Clinton, the likely winners of those primaries, represent the two most unpopular and disliked candidates in memory, with some 65 percent of Americans saying they dislike Trump and another 56 percent saying they dislike Clinton. Indeed, Clinton, not favored by almost half of Democrats, is so disliked outside the Democratic Party that there's a strong likelihood -- and a fear even among Democratic leaders -- that she could lose to Trump or another Republican nominee all by herself, with or without a Sanders endorsement. Meanwhile, the most liked candidate this year continues to be Sanders, whose negative rating is just 36 percent -- probably all of them Republicans -- and who continues to poll better against all possible Republican candidates than does Clinton. With numbers like that Sanders, if he continued to build his movement and continued to bring in new voters as he has demonstrably done in the primaries, could even contemplate winning such a general election race. He has also demonstrated his ability to attract tens of millions of dollars a month in online contributions. Running in a three-way race, he'd surely collect even more money, making him fully competitive with the two widely-loathed big-party candidates.
As the Green's presidential candidate, Sanders would have the opportunity, even if he were to lose, to catapult the Green Party, for decades stuck in limbo in the low single digits as simply a protest-vote option, into major-party status as the party of the 99% -- the poor, working and progressive people of all races. That's a standing that would not go away in subsequent elections, but that instead could be built upon -- especially with both major parties currently in danger of fragmenting. Given Sanders' already proven popularity, it would be impossible for the corporate media to deny him a lectern at any general election debates, as was always done to Green Party candidates and independents like Nader in the past.
Sanders and his ardent supporters, in other words, have a unique historic opportunity to shatter the asphyxiating two-party duopoly of two pro-corporate parties that has been the Bermuda Triangle of progressive politics for over a century.
Will he give up on the self-defeating, nonsensical notion of backing Hillary Clinton if she wins the Democratic Party's nomination for president? If he does, despite being clearly the most progressive candidate to make a serious run for the presidency since Eugene Debs in 1920 (when he garnered 3.4 percent of the vote running from a prison cell), Sanders will at best be consigned to a brief, dismissive footnote in future histories of the United States. If he runs in the general election as a Green, he has a chance to write a whole new chapter in those history books.

So here's an call to action:
If Bernie Sanders is reluctant to make the jump to running as a Green, he needs to be pushed by his supporters. He needs to be shown that it can be done, and that his would not be a quixotic campaign, but rather a serious effort to win the White House. How can that pushing be done? Well, think about it a minute. By the time this primary season ends in early June, Over nine million people, and maybe more, will have cast votes for Sanders. Many many more who support him passionately were denied the right to vote for him by restrictive primary rules in states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, rules that limited voting in Democratic primaries to people registered as Democrats (in NY you had to make that decision back in October, 2015 before Sanders was even being considered a serious candidate!). In fact, where the primaries have been open to independent voters, Sanders has usually won. Even last Tuesday, the four primaries that Sanders lost, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Connecticut, were closed, but in Rhode Island, which was open to independents, Sanders won by 10 percent, a crucial difference not mentioned in most corporate news reports). Obviously in the general election, independents will be voting.
Imagine if even a fraction of those millions who back Sanders -- his voters and those who were barred from voting for him -- were to descend on Philadelphia for the July Democratic convention, which will be held on July 25-28 in, of all places, the Wells Fargo Bank Center (funded and named by one of those notorious too-big-to-fail banks that have been Hillary Clinton's faves). Imagine those Bernie backers filling the streets of this city where the nation was founded, armed with signs saying "No Hillary endorsement!" and "Go Green Bernie!" And remember, inside that aptly named convention center there will also be hundreds of elected Sanders delegates, who would be demanding the same thing of him.
How could Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old activist veteran of so many popular movements over the years, refuse such a rousing call to action?

[Peter Lemkin]

This is what the revolution looks like: Former Sanders staffers are launching a new PAC aimed at midterm Congressional elections

The ambitious new plan by Bernie staffers is a giant leap in guaranteeing his movement endures

Sean Illing

Bernie Sanders' dedicated supporters(Credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)
Bernie Sanders has called his campaign a "political revolution." The word "revolution" is poorly defined in the political science literature, and it's used so often in popular culture as to strip it of any concrete meaning. Generally, though, people take revolution to mean wholesale change, a rupture in the status quo. To his credit, Sanders has been quite clear about what he means by the phrase:

"What does a political revolution look like? It means that 80 percent of the people vote in national elections, not 40 percent. It means that billionaires can't make unlimited campaign contributions and buy and sell politicians. It means that the U.S. Government represents the needs of all the people, not just the 1 percent and their lobbyists."

Sanders has said repeatedly that his goal is to bring more people into the process. Although lost on a subset of his supporters, Sanders has spoken soberly about the prospects of radical change in this country. His speeches are full of rhetorical flourishes and grand pronouncements, but he's admitted that accomplishing his agenda will require more a single presidential election. "I acknowledge at every speech that I give," he told MSNBC's Chris Matthews, "that no president, not even Bernie Sanders or anybody else can do it alone."
Real change in this country will require a sustained national mobilization, what I've called a counter-Tea Party movement. While their agenda was nihilistic and obstructionist, the Tea Party was a massive success by any measure. And they succeeded because they systematically altered the Congressional landscape. Our system is such that the president, no matter who she is, can accomplish very little legislatively without a majority in Congress.
Currently, the GOP has a 30-seat majority in the House; so long as that's the case, there is virtually no chance of passing universal health care or a higher minimum wage or sensible financial regulations or even a carbon tax, all of which are central to Sanders's platform.
Now that it's clear Sanders won't be the Democratic nominee, it's worth asking: What becomes of his "revolution"? Will his supporters remain engaged beyond 2016 or will they retreat from politics altogether? Again, even if Sanders was elected president, he would still face the same systemic constraints as Obama.


There is at least one positive sign that the Sanders movement will not end in November. According to The Huffington Post's Samantha Lachman, some of Sanders former staffers and volunteers have formed a new political action committee, the purpose of which is to put progressives in Congress.
Lachman writes: "Brand New Congress, which was launched Monday, is looking ahead to the 2018 midterm elections to replace Congress all at once' with lawmakers who agree with the Vermont independent's policy positions…A timeline on the PAC's website says that it plans to form local search committees to recruit organizers and candidates who are new to politics. The PAC says it will codify various progressive policies in a platform that its slate of candidates must support."
Zack Exley, who helped found the PAC, explained it well: "We learned…that the grassroots are better qualified to run electoral campaigns than Democratic party operatives…They just need to be given the tools, the data, the offices and the structure to succeed." "We want a supermajority in Congress," Exley added, "that is fighting for jobs, criminal justice reform and the environment."


Sanders has yet to endorse the group, but I suspect he will after the election and he should. His campaign has shown that the country will respond to a progressive platform if it's couched in the right terms. Sanders has outraised the Clinton machine for three consecutive months on the backs of small individual donors and despite being far behind in the delegate count. He's amassed a two-million-person donor list, which can be used to leverage support for progressive House candidates nationwide. That Sanders, a relative unknown on the national stage a year ago, could accomplish this much this quickly says something significant about the mood of the country.
I'm not sure if revolution is the right term, but Sanders has certainly started a movement. If progressives want to build on that movement, if they want to effect real change, this what they have to do. Whether or not "Brand New Congress" will succeed is hard to say. But they have the right idea, and Sanders supporters ought to turn their attention to the midterms the day after the presidential race, as what happens there is every bit as important as who wins the White House.

[Drew Phipps]

Hmm. Under your scenario, nobody would win enough electoral votes to carry the election. If the contest goes to the House of Representatives, don't the Republicans win anyways?

Wait. Assume that Trump is denied Republican nomination by virtue of some convention chicanery, and run your numbers again... What if "Odd Couple" Sanders and Trump team up?

[Magda Hassan]

I reckon it would definitely worth it. There is going to be a ton of people who just will not vote for Hilary. Partly because they are sexist pricks. Partly because she has appalling policies.And I reckon Saunders would also get a lot of Eisenhower type Republicans who want US manufacturing and infrastructure etc and would want to make a protest vote against Trump. We had a party here who sacked their leader and were right on the nose with the public for doing this (even if the rules allowed it this is was considered very bad form) The person who took over from him was a woman. We also had a hung parliament so she could only govern with the involvement of the minor parties and independents. It was not too bad (Royal commission into church child sexual abuse) but she never had the acceptance or legitimacy from the electorate because of the way she came to her position. There was some significant sexism in some quarters but also her style and many failed policies had a lot to do with it. The original leader was there waiting with his original good policies for a come back but the party was so stupid they would rather the opposition win rather then reinstate the person the electorate had overwhelmingly chosen in the first place. They refused until the last minute to reinstate him for the next election. They lost of course. People had really had enough of the contempt. I see the Democratic party in the same light. For them it is all about Hilary. Sanders is just a distraction. Never mind that he fills out stadiums everywhere and Hilary barely get any. But she can't beat Trump. So the Democrats will rather give you Trump than use the winnable Sanders. But if Sanders runs as an independent that could really throw things up in the air. I hope there is a good coalition of them getting together and I will have my fingers crossed for them.

[R.K. Locke]

Sanders should definitely run as a third party candidate, or join forces with Jill Stein. Nobody on the left is interested in voting for Hillary, but there is still plenty of support for Bernie and for the Greens. They wouldn't win, but they could at least make a third party viable for the first time in a long time.

[Albert Doyle]

Hillary was on CNN today complaining that Bernie has criticized people too much. Of course she was inferring her crony wall street sponsors were the poor victims of Bernie's tendency to criticize.


The stupidity of the American public should never be underestimated.

[David Guyatt]

I can onlt hope Sanders does something to break the stitch up that breaks apart the established American political system. It's urgently needed. Not just for the US but for the world.

[Magda Hassan]

Too right David. I see in the UK there is a concerted (Blairite) campaign under way to tar Labour with the Anti-Semitic slur and Livingstone has been suspended. 'Labour has an anti-semitic problem' Mann said despite the fact until one year ago their leader was , ahem, Jewish. And Livingstone having had 2 wives who were Jewish. And there are plenty of Jewish Labour members who are perfectly content with the way the party does handle real anti Semitism when it arises. All to try to destabilise and unseat Jeremy Corbyn from becoming leader and PM. Which would really change the way the UK deals with the Middle East and Israel/Palestine. Amongst other things.

[David Guyatt]

Too right David. I see in the UK there is a concerted (Blairite) campaign under way to tar Labour with the Anti-Semitic slur and Livingstone has been suspended. 'Labour has an anti-semitic problem' Mann said despite the fact until one year ago their leader was , ahem, Jewish. And Livingstone having had 2 wives who were Jewish. And there are plenty of Jewish Labour members who are perfectly content with the way the party does handle real anti Semitism when it arises. All to try to destabilise and unseat Jeremy Corbyn from becoming leader and PM. Which would really change the way the UK deals with the Middle East and Israel/Palestine. Amongst other things.

Yep, true. All part of the get Corbyn at any cost faction in the Labour Party and the media. The Brit public, like the US public mustn't be allowed to reach their own decisions and then make the wrong choice at the next general election.

[Drew Phipps]

Here's the problem with a serious third party (or independent) run: What happens if it fails? Quo bono?


I won't vote for Hilary. My reasons aren't sexist, but are (first) tied to all the deceit, manipulation, and obstructionism that she has demonstrated at every point in her life since she became a public figure and (second) because I think it would be a major mistake to put a sexual predator back into the White House (this time without any official duties to occupy his time). Had Hilary filed for divorce at any point in the last 20 years, I would have been willing to give her a chance; but the fact is, her ambition has so badly compromised her judgment, and she is nothing more than a shill for the moneyed interests that own her.


I won't vote for Cruz either. I happen to agree with Boehner's assessment of Cruz' character. I can see him presiding over the deliberate dismantling of the federal government, in favor of a plutocracy, with a smug grin on his face. You may as well give him a purple toga, a box of matches, and a fiddle.


I'd rather not vote for Trump either, for the obvious reasons. However, I have few choices left. I suspect that many Americans in 2016 will vote AGAINST the candidate that scares them the most, as opposed to voting FOR anyone. Too bad (like the Richard Pryor movie Brewster's Millions) you can't vote for "None of the Above."