@doh1304 It looks to me like the establishment has decided to make the smart move, which is to use a controlled Bern.

that Bernie will mot run as a Democrat in 2020 because there will not be a valid Democratic party in 2020. But that will be decided in 2018. If the establishment Democrats sabotage the Berniecrats in 2018, like I think they will, then the party will commit suicide and go the way of the Whigs, and the end will b fast, much faster than we think possible. If they don't, or more likely if they fail, then the Democratic party will become the Berniecratic party in all but perhaps name, actually the most likely scenario.

@Essus Wow. 24 people agree that Bernie is going to widen options back to the left, when that essay says straight up he's getting in bed with Randi Weingartner. Not only that, but what exactly does "shoring up his foreign policy credentials" mean? In this day and age, one should check on that.

Nobody can both make deals with the establishment and widen options back to the left. That has never happened once since 1976. Prove me wrong. I'd like to be wrong.

Even if he caucuses as a Democrat (as much as I can as a Canadian). I loathe lesser evilism, but I see Bernie Sanders as a stepping stone to widening the field of acceptable political opinions back to the left.

I'd look at this as being a way to get the local level more left. If all politics is local, the effects of an avowed Democratic Socialist as President in the good ol' USA, makes a Green Party Representative, State or Federal, much more immediate. Especially if there is a framework developed for noncorporatist candidates to win.

So, yes I hope he runs.

@Bollox Ref

because no third party is allowed in the debates since the league of women voters is no longer in charge of them. This is why RT has produced the debates on third party candidates.
Ross Perot split the votes too much and this is why Clinton only received 42% of the votes.

This is why the debates have become useless. Instead of candidates being able to answer questions in full, now they get a minute and the other one gets 30 seconds to rebut. How boring and uninformative they are now.

Why suffer the debacle that is the DNC/primary/caucus season?

With Nina Turner as a running mate, I can imagine a lot of support.

@on the cusp Better person? Sure. Better politician, better leader? Well, he could be, if he had the independence and power to do what he chose. Do we believe he has that independence, or is he under somebody's thumb?

I refer back to the Wikileaks email in which Robbie Mook told John Podesta "We have leverage over him," which I believe was answered "Great! Where shall we stick in the knife?"

I want to see if he kicks the AIPAC habit. I want to see if he sucks up to the establishment Dems, or if they suck up to him, or at least step aside and let him run his race.
I know I will not contribute a cent to his race.
I know he is better than Hillary, Biden, Harris, Warren, Booker, and Brown.
I will decide down the line if being better than those pieces of shit is worth tapping my index finger on a screen. That is the only effort I would ever make for him.

@BORG_US_BORG He was a lightening rod. Bernie or no, that enthusiasm and more is still waiting to be tapped.

I was skeptical of Obama from the start of his campaign. Still voted for him, first term. Was very angry at him for giving away everything he could to the R's, as I freefalled into economic chaos (and still on rocky terrain).

I BELIEVED in Bernie! He had integrity. He had the right message. I fought for him in the trenches. Phone-banked for several states, debated hill-bots at the caucus and online (TOP), rallied, etc. I felt horribly betrayed when he endorsed her, and bought a house on the lake (incredibly tone deaf) right after the campaign.

I remember several real time accounts where his campaign actually being very traditional, top down, and slow to react to contingency.

For instance several cities had all volunteer campaign headquarters, (the exact grass-roots Bernie extolled) that were soundly ignored by the HQ campaign, or they would come to town and dismiss all of the infrastructure that had just been created for them. IT people galore tried to help and were shunned. Kind of like a rural Hill campaign.

Obama, to his credit, had the most tech-current campaign since Kennedy in 1960.

Bernie got as far as he did on his message. The time is still right for his message, I just don't know if he's the one to carry it any more. He really tarnished his credibility to me at the end of the campaign. He's getting pretty old too. I just have a hard time believing he can generate that groundswell of enthusiasm again.

@BORG_US_BORG Hillbot operatives infiltrated Bernnie's campaign. See the statements of Niko House for example. It is what I would expect them to have done.

That said, Sanders ought to have exercised or appointed someone to exercise better control of his campaign. He is an old guy, even if in great health, and moves too slowly. Another reason why no more Boomers should be considered for high office.

I was skeptical of Obama from the start of his campaign. Still voted for him, first term. Was very angry at him for giving away everything he could to the R's, as I freefalled into economic chaos (and still on rocky terrain).

I BELIEVED in Bernie! He had integrity. He had the right message. I fought for him in the trenches. Phone-banked for several states, debated hill-bots at the caucus and online (TOP), rallied, etc. I felt horribly betrayed when he endorsed her, and bought a house on the lake (incredibly tone deaf) right after the campaign.

I remember several real time accounts where his campaign actually being very traditional, top down, and slow to react to contingency.

For instance several cities had all volunteer campaign headquarters, (the exact grass-roots Bernie extolled) that were soundly ignored by the HQ campaign, or they would come to town and dismiss all of the infrastructure that had just been created for them. IT people galore tried to help and were shunned. Kind of like a rural Hill campaign.

Obama, to his credit, had the most tech-current campaign since Kennedy in 1960.

Bernie got as far as he did on his message. The time is still right for his message, I just don't know if he's the one to carry it any more. He really tarnished his credibility to me at the end of the campaign. He's getting pretty old too. I just have a hard time believing he can generate that groundswell of enthusiasm again.

@Cassiodorus
before him, Bernie will run the two wars "They" tell him to.

Bernie Sanders is taking steps to address longstanding political shortcomings that were exposed in 2016

You mean like actually investigating election fraud when it appears to have happened?

And he's been meeting with international affairs experts such as Bill Perry, a defense secretary in the administration of President Bill Clinton, around a series of speeches designed to define his international vision

I looked this Perry fellow up. Here's what it says on Wikipedia:

Perry adopted "preventive defense" as his guide to national security policy in the post-Cold War world.[5][18][19] During the Cold War the United States had relied on deterrence rather than prevention as the central principle of its security strategy. Perry outlined three basic tenets of a preventive strategy: keep threats from emerging; deter those that actually emerged; and if prevention and deterrence failed, defeat the threat with military force.[20] In practical terms this strategy relied on threat reduction programs (reducing the nuclear complex of the former Soviet Union), counter-proliferation efforts, the NATO Partnership for Peace and expansion of the alliance, and the maintenance of military forces and weapon systems ready to fight if necessary. To carry out this strategy, Perry thought it necessary to maintain a modern, ready military force, capable of fighting two major regional wars at the same time.[21]

Since all the "threats" are self-created at this point, we should ask: which two regional wars is President Sanders going to keep?

@emorej a hong kong designate a shadow cabinet who could also be speaking and writing about their areas of expertise, and be able to go into more detail than a Presidential candidate is able to do.

For example, someone like Joe Sestak as a Secretary of Defense designate could be giving speeches to veterans groups about converting our military establishment from an offensive force to defensive, with an improved navy and expanded coast guard, and a rapid response team to respond to disasters like the fires out west and the floods in the South and the Caribbean.

I love Nina Turner, but I think she might be better suited to a cabinet position than the VP. AG perhaps, with the assignment to restore the rule of law in every city, county and state.

Bernie needs to build up one or more back-up candidates to be visibly available to inherit his campaign in the event he has a natural or unnatural physical demise. The lack of such candidates will be a dangerous temptation for attacks against him, as it becomes clearer that mere issue-co-opting, trolling, fake news and internet censorship are insufficient to block his nomination.

Early naming of a presumed vice-presidential running mate could be one way to jump-start such a person's visibility, although there is a major difference in the profile of an ideal Veep vs. an immediate heir. For example:

>1. Nina Turner's wonderful personal qualities (including husband and son being policemen) could overcome her lack of elected office-holding track-record, for purposes of being a winning Veep nominee, but perhaps not sufficiently to be a winning Presidential nominee.

>2. Jeff Merkley adds none of the ethnic or gender balance, which could be useful in a Veep nominee (especially one named earlier than usual), but his U.S. Senate experience would help make him a winning Presidential nominee.

>3. Barbara Lee (assuming that she persuasively repudiates her 2016 collaboration in the disgusting sabotaging, in the Democratic platform committee, of Bernie's proposed opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership) appears uniquely equipped serve as both a Veep nominee and a back-up Presidential nominee, notably by having more of a foreign policy profile than either Nina or Jeff.

Ideally Bernie's campaign would assemble a committee which Bernie publicly authorizes to designate his replacement in mid-campaign. Besides encouraging eventual public confidence in the person who is designated, this committee would immediately draw public attention to the risks Bernie faces, and could thereby complicate and even deter attacks on him.

@gjohnsit

I have to say I'm concerned that too many people here are so cynical that they are unable to see the vast gulf between Sanders and almost every other candidate.

We've been burned, amice. Many of us believed in Sanders only to have the bitterly toxic draught of Hillary Clinton imposed on us.

And that kind of injury breeds both cynicism and distrust.....

I'm concerned that too many people here are so cynical that they are unable to see the vast gulf between Sanders and almost every other candidate.

@gjohnsit I see the gulf. The gulf is between what Bernie would like to do and what those shitheads like to do.

Unfortunately, I see no evidence that Bernie will be free to do what he would like to do, and plenty of evidence that those shitheads have him under their collective thumb.

I'm concerned that too many people here are so cynical that they are unable to see the vast gulf between Sanders and almost every other candidate.

@Dragonkat
[video:https://youtu.be/eKgPY1adc0A width:500 height:315]

Mollie

The "Grand Bargain" isn't dead--it's being implemented incrementally through piecemeal legislation. Please read "The Moment Of Truth."

"The standard of living of the average American has to decline. I don't think you can escape that."
--Paul Volcker, The New York Times, October 18, 1979, Page 1.

“If we can divide the electorate this way, we can have them expending their energies fighting amongst themselves, over issues that for us, have no meaning whatsoever."
--USA Bankers Magazine, August 25, 1924

"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."
--Author Unknown

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Fool me twice shame on me.

As I said to other friends elsewhere, if I could draw political cartoons.

Bernie in a rocking chair on the front porch of a small cabin that says DNC on the roof.

Sitting in front of him a millennial, a white collar worker, and a (updated from the original given the points made above) disabled vet, all their clothing torn and patched, hair rumpled.

Text bubble, "We have to stay unified, the party can be reformed from within.

Inside the Cabin, Tom Perez in a suit, reading a paper that says "DNC fires progressives for lobbyists." Giant moneybag on the table beside him.

Donna Brazille at the back door letting the well dressed newly appointed superdelegates in.

"Uncle Bernie's Cabin"

Needless to say my opinion of Bernie at this point is sheepdog is too nice a term for him. As long as keeps playing the part of the token progressive he and the dems can piss right the hell off. No way will I ever vote for another after this last election.