Bernie Sanders: "I Am Prepared to Run for President of the United States"

[Zioneer]

I hope he runs as a Democrat and pushes Hillary to the left. That'd be neat. Pulling a Nader? Not so much.

[Zioneer]

I hope he runs as a Democrat and pushes Hillary to the left. That'd be neat. Pulling a Nader? Not so much.

Not sure if Hillary can be "pushed to the left." I think running as a Democrat would undermine literally everything he stands for, as well.

So would running as an independent and handing the election to the Republicans. At least if he has a spot at the Democratic primary debates, he could express democratic socialist views without Naderizing everything. In fact, if he's more popular than Nader... Ted Cruz or Rand Paul could become president, potentially. I'm not saying there's no room for a third party, but we need to at least change the electoral rules so that third parties don't hand the election to the worst possible people. Bernie could express support for changing the rules to instant-runoff voting, so that Republicans don't squeak through and properly progressive third parties could get attention.

[Zioneer]

ITT: people who don't want substantive change writing off an actual progressive

Oh I'd vote for him if he ran as a Democrat; it's just that first-past-the-post means that if he gets any real support as an independent, then we get Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush in the White House. Yes, Hillary is terrible and I'd vote for Bernie in the primary rather than her, but the realities of first past the post means turd sandwich is better than gleeful destruction of the economic system (the pro-defaulters that are the Republicans).

We need instant-runoff voting to have real multiple-party representation.

I do want change, but Bernie can do that better changing things from the inside.

[Zioneer]

Did you see how Bernie held up against Bachmann in a debate? She completely embarrassed him if he can't beat Bachmann in a debate I can't imagine how badly he'd do against Clinton.

Are you joking? If you saw the same debate I did, Bernie demolished Bachmann, and his only missteps were thinking Bachmann wasn't as stupid as she seemed.