Probably more of a GQ, but it’d end up here eventually anyhow. So…
Hypothetical: March 1, 2016 comes and Hillary is using O’Malley as a blackjack to give Sanders the drubbing of a lifetime. It’s apparent he has no chance to appear on the ballot with a (D) after his name.
Anything to stop him from running as an (I)?
The only reason (apart from rules I’d know nothing about) is he wouldn’t want to split the (D) vote and usher in a Republican president. But considering who is running as an ® this cycle, I’m not certain even a split (D) party would result in an ® president–it’d still come down to Hillary or Bernie, with the ® coming in 3rd.
Bernie has said he won’t run as an independent so I think you can rule that out. I don’t know if his seat is up for re-election, I’ll assume not since I haven’t heard it mentioned at all. I think he goes back to the Senate. If his seat is safe, I hope Hillary offers him a job, either as VP or in her cabinet.
I’m sure I’m seen a clip of his being interviewed and stating that he wouldn’t run as an independent, but I can’t seem to find it.
I can’t see what Hillary would do with him. No way in hell she’d pick him as a VP, perhaps HUD or Interior or some low level cabinet position, but I don’t know why he’d take it.
Bottom line: He’s had his fun and he won’t push Clinton any further left than she is now. He should just head back to Vermont.
Why not? Didn’t stop Ralph Nader(I) who gave us GWB or Ross Perot(I) who gave us WJC.
I assume there is no rule or contractual obligation that could prevent him from running, but then unless he had a hope in hell of winning, it’s basically political suicide or a swan song…
I assume that whether HRH HRC has a vindictive streak or not, the rest of the aprty would - and would pull out all the stops to provide that “I’ll see you never work in this town again.”
The nature of politics in the civilized world, is that you try, and if you lose, you graciously allow that the other person won… and either retire or bide your time… and if nasty, snipe. Running as an independent with no reasonable hope of winning is just a middle finger to the system, especially if it ushers in the opposite party.
I remember seeing Bill Clinton in an interview, several presidential elections ago, talking very candidly and unscripted about politics. He said basically, there’s about 40% who will vote for their own party - 40% Democrat, 40% Republican. The trick to getting elected is to get a majority of the remaining 20%. (He was being pessimistic at the time, suggested that in fact the Republican share was closed to 45%.)
So - my analysis - an independent has a much tougher road; they need to persuade a substantial part of one party’s 40% plus a substantial part of 20%. The electoral college throws a new wrench into the mix - they need to do the same trick country-wide. Very few independents manage to plunk themselves in the middle to appeal to committed voters from both parties, so the Sanders or Naders are appealing to the far left D, the Perots and (possible) Trump(I) or Paul(I) to the far right.
(Here you also see the Primary dilemma - to appeal to those committed voters of your party, you need to be much further off center than when it’s time to appeal to the 20% in the middle…)
Neither Nader nor Perot ran for a major party nomination prior to their independent runs. Perot’s candidacy did not give us WJC. And Sanders, unlike Nader, acknowledges that the Democrat’s victory is vastly superior to the alternative, and is likely to support it. Other than that, though, good point.
Some states have sore loser laws, that don’t allow you to run as an independent if you’ve already run in a party’s primary. There are enough that don’t that, if you just want to throw a temper tantrum and get attention, you could spoil the election for your party-mates… but you couldn’t get elected that way. Sanders does want attention, of course, but he’s not in the realm of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”, and I highly doubt he’d want to be known as the guy who spitefully killed the Democrats’ chances.
My personal opinion: I don’t think Sanders began the run with any hope of winning. I think his purpose was to give HRC a leftward nudge. And he is not an idiot like Ralph Nader. He will endorse Hillary and go back to the senate.
The reason I call Nader an idiot is not that he ran; he had every right to and may not have understood that he could make the difference. The reason I view him as an idiot is that he never accepted that W was worse than Gore would have been. This is true idiocy. Bernie is not of that ilk. Just my opinion.
