Perhaps it is all wishful thinking - But if Bernie Sanders did run for President in 2016 - would you

[Douglas Carpenter]

59. you are probably right... but I cannot help but ask myself ..how long will we have to wait for

a real national figure to emerge who will push an agenda forward toward a progressive future? For almost 40 years the Democrats have essentially been only playing defense except perhaps on social issues where there have had some great successes. But on the core issues of democracy, economics and even foreign policy - the struggle has been to minimize the damage. In most of the rest of the advanced western democratic world - it is not even controversial in the slightest to believe in socialist healthcare and in a very comprehensive social security system. Even the conservatives everywhere else in the western democratic world wouldn't dare challenge such a basic social contract. How long do we have to wait for a national messenger to emerge to simply push the basic assumptions of modern liberal western democracy into the mainstream of American political discussion?