Will Bernie run and will he go Indy?

[© tweed]

as I've pointed out before, if he ran as an Indy spoiler he would face retribution from the Dem Senate caucus re: committee assignments.  they could turn him into a backbench ghost, and it's not like he can caucus with the GOP, so he'd have zero leverage.

so even if he genuinely doesn't give a sh**t in a Clinton v Bush race he will not run as an Ind.

[© tweed]

as I've pointed out before, if he ran as an Indy spoiler he would face retribution from the Dem Senate caucus re: committee assignments.  they could turn him into a backbench ghost, and it's not like he can caucus with the GOP, so he'd have zero leverage.

so even if he genuinely doesn't give a sh**t in a Clinton v Bush race he will not run as an Ind.

he's 73. how many more senate terms does he have left anyhow? if he ever wanted to go all in, now would be the time.

as Wulfric below me pointed out, 73 is hardly all that old for a Senator.  he's a lock to be re-elected in 2018, and thus serve until early 2025.

he's also not one of these Senators who can walk out into some six-figure private sector job, and now that Feingold's out he's probably near the bottom in personal net worth among all of the Senators.  those six more paychecks of ~$175k have meaning to him.

[© tweed]

Depending on how negative his relations are with Clinton by the end of the primaries, I honestly believe that he could pull a Eugene McCarthy and run as an independent in the general election.

McCarthy didn't run as an independent in '68, he ran in '76.  despite hating Humphrey more than he hated Carter (I'd suspect).

I doubt McCarthy left Chicago in '68 physically capable of running a campaign any further.  something had died there, and even Gene McCarthy, hardly a radical of any sort, could sense it.