2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: IMO, the chances of a Sanders 3rd party run [View all]Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)If Bernie wanted to run third party, he could have announced that a year ago. He would have been welcomed as the Green Party nominee with open arms. Jill Stein, the presumptive nominee, would certainly have stepped aside for him. I don't think he even would have had to worry about winning primaries because as I understand it the Greens hold few if any primaries. He would have been on the ballot everywhere for the general election, as was Nader.
He didn't do that. His reason for not doing it -- that he doesn't want to split the vote and help elect the Republican nominee -- is still perfectly valid. He expressly referred to the lesson of 2000 in explaining that he didn't want to follow Nader's path.
The real effect of all that's gone down will be to reduce the effectiveness of Bernie's endorsement of anyone else in the general election. The "Bernie or Bust" viewpoint is based primarily on political principles, but the BoB ranks will be swelled by people who believe, with good reason, that Sanders was not treated fairly. Some of those people will be swayed, by Bernie's endorsement, to hold their noses and vote for the Democrat anyway -- but some won't.