Party Pooper Bernie Sanders Rides Political Independence to New Heights

[leftcoastmountains]

-As he climbs in the presidential polls, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is demonstrating that a politician without a party can achieve success. All the victories Sanders has scored to date — four in Burlington mayoral races, eight in contests for the U.S. House and two in U.S. Senate elections — have occurred outside the traditional two-party system.

http://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/party-pooper-bernie-sanders-rides-political-independence-to-new-heights/Content?oid=2868873

[Demeter]

1. If the Democrats try to disallow him on the basis of "not belonging" to the Party

they will be doing the Party and the country a disservice.

Far better to have a nominee that the People want, who wins the White House, who self-identifies with the Democrats for whatever reason, than to suffer a righteous defeat with an unpopular, non-viable candidate already rejected once by the Party

(especially given the caliber of opposition presented by the candidates served up by the GOP).

[Enthusiast]

2. I am in perfect agreement with you, Demeter.

Sometimes I suspect the party PTB do not care if a Democrat gets elected at all.

[Demeter]

3. That is a definite possibility--if one forgets the People are the PTB in the Party

and not the moneybags.

[sabrina 1]

5. Well, those who pull the strings of our government don't care. The parties probably

care the way two football teams care. Whoever wins gets a trophy and some nice perks.

But neither party can even pretend their desire to win has much to do with the voters and their needs. Not any more.

I'd love to see Bernie and those who get elected to Congress who get there BECAUSE of him, take over the Dem Party and turn it into a Party of the People that takes no bribes from anyone. That RUNS on that premise in every election.

80% or more of the people want the MONEY out of POLITICS. So it's a very popular issue to run on.

Then watch the other party scrambling to explain why THEY are taking Corporate bribes.

It's not that hard, we just have not been electing the right people.

[MisterP]

7. the DLC took over 1994-6 in order to secure a flow of donors: not only did that mean

two decades of kissing up to the MIC, Wall Street, Yuppies, and IT, but now they get the same amount of money whether they win or lose, so that motivation's gone--so if a candidate would win but stop the gravy train, he's gotta be torpedoed even if the establishment candidate will lose (and the rank and file will STILL be blaming Nader)

[MisterP]

4. heck, it might create a Seventh Party System as both parties fracture and realign,

or even shatter the duopoly altogether--after all, they keep riding real accomplishments until they stop making said accomplishments, and we let them do it over and over!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System

voters see a party that's gone along with war and dismantling of the economy to benefit its backers, a party used to running its voters like a fur farm and crushing every real challenge, a party used to saying how everything's peachy and will be even peachier, a party that says "the Republicans will win if you complain and then pass bad laws! booga booga!" and then pops the champagne with said Pubs, passes said bad laws, and comes back to us again

the primary shenanigans that often lose the generals, rewarding 2010 and 14's failures and blaming everyone but their perfect selves, hinky debate schedules written when they assumed there'd be nobody to debate, unprecedented noncompete agreements--these are all what are DRIVING Sanders over Clinton: barring the truest Dem around on economic AND social issues while arrogating the label to the stratum of do-nothing money-grubbing clods that exemplifies and proves your asshole uncle right

if they try to do anything to further bar Sanders from the visible events that constitute "politics" for the less-involved 80% of voters--debates and primaries--it's going to create a crisis so bad they'd wish they were facing the Bull Moose Party: "Clinton" is going to be associated with pay-for-play, flackery, an obscene "soft coup" against democracy (without the plausibility of the FL 2000 one), with the useless hall-monitor types who openly confess they don't care about WHAT someone passes because they just LIKE them; she'll have nothing to offer other than "electability" because her backers have just now made it extremely clear she's not going to push for any of the feelgood stuff she'll have cribbed from what's left of the Sanders campaign once elected

[Demeter]

6. (who told you about my uncle?)