Let's get us some Independents! Put Lieberman, Bloomberg, and Ventura in charge of the party!

[JCanete]

29. I think Sanders should be careful about how he promotes being an independent.

He has to realize there are people that left the party because they felt like it "had left them" or whatever, who then were barred from the process of voting for him in the primary. There isn't going to be a viable third party in this nation until we have a different voting system, which we may never have, so working within the two-party system makes sense.
So he should be cautious about making it sexy to be an independent, at least when it comes to being a voter.

That said, there are reasons to be unaffiliated as a candidate. The party might back somebody who it decides is more in-line with what leadership wants, or more in line with what they think is palatable to a certain constituency. Operating within that system can be hamstringing if decisions are made and funding support allocated that doesn't favor you.

Independents aren't necessarily undecided between Republicans and Democrats though. To assume that they are all waffling between the two parties is not at all accounting for left-leaning independents, who I suspect, typically vote for D's or Greens. As to whether they are enlightened, you can't make a blanket statement as to that whole swath of voter's enlightenment, but as I already stated, it isn't exactly strategically beneficial to register independent as far as I know, so there's that.