Can Bernie Sanders Win the Love of a Party He Scorns?

[seabeyond]

117. yes. he lost many running for the socialist party. and lost the first run for congress

splitting the dem vote and repug winning, hence making the deal. i said viable dem.

Between 1981 and 1988, it is true, Sanders “presented himself to the left outside of Vermont as the leader of the third party movement, vanquishing the two major parties in every Mayoral election.” But in 1988, Sanders got a lesson on the perils of third party politics when he ran for federal office. In the election for Vermont’s seat in the House of Representatives, the independent Sanders and Democrat Paul Poirer divided the majority vote and the contest went to a Republican. Sanders responded by drifting right and cutting a deal with the Vermont Democrats: the party would permit no serious candidate to run against him while he blocked serious third party formation in Vermont and adopted positions in line with the national corporate war Democrats. Miller’s up-close account merits lengthy quotation:

“Bernie – out of office for the first time in eight years – went to the Kennedy School at Harvard for six months and came back with a new relationship with the state’s Democrats. The Vermont Democratic Party leadership has allowed no authorized candidate to run against Bernie in 1990 (or since) and in return, Bernie has repeatedly blocked third party building. His closet party, the Democrats, are very worried about a left 3rd party forming in Vermont. In the last two elections, Sanders has prevented Progressives in his machine from running against Howard Dean, our conservative Democratic Governor who was ahead of Gingrich in the attack on welfare.”

“The unauthorized Democratic candidate in 1990, Delores Sandoval, an African American faculty member at the University of Vermont, was amazed that the official party treated her as a nonperson and Bernie kept outflanking her to her right. She opposed the Gulf build-up, Bernie supported it. She supported decriminalization of drug use and Bernie defended the war on drugs, and so on…”

“After being safely elected in November of 1990, Bernie continued to support the buildup while seeking membership in the Democratic Congressional Caucus – with the enthusiastic support of the Vermont Democratic Party leadership. But, the national Democratic Party blew him off, so he finally voted against the war and returned home – and as the war began – belatedly claimed to be the leader of the anti-war movement in Vermont.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/21/bernie-out-of-the-closet-sanders-longstanding-deal-with-the-democrats/

In the 1990s, however, Sanders set his sites on higher office--not by building an alternative party, but by running as an independent who maintained a collaborative relationship with the Democrats.

Once ensconced in Washington as a member of the House and Senate, he abandoned his principled opposition to the two-party system. As Vermont Democrat Howard Dean--a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination himself--stated, "He is basically a liberal Democrat, and he is a Democrat at that--he runs as an Independent because he doesn't like the structure and money that gets involved...The bottom line is that Bernie Sanders votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time."

Since he made his arrangement with the Democrats, Sanders has uncritically supported them in Vermont elections. As a result, when his ally, Gov. Peter Shumlin, declared war on state workers, Sanders didn't even issue a statement in opposition. His silence led many in Vermont to ask: "Where's Bernie?"

http://socialistworker.org/2015/05/05/problem-bernie-sanders

Sanders ran, and now it appeared that his courting of the Democrats paid off.

Their big guns stayed out of the way, apparently assured that Sanders was close enough to being a Democrat already. With the help of the National Rifle Association, which hated the Republican incumbent, Sanders won.

His association with Democrats continued to pay off.

By 1991, Sanders — although still officially an independent — was part of the Democratic caucus in Congress, climbing the party’s seniority ladder. He has not faced a serious challenge from a Democrat in all the elections since.

“Why would you run against him, you know what I mean?” said Jeff Weaver, a longtime Sanders staffer and current campaign manager. For Democratic leaders in Congress, he said, Sanders “was a more reliable vote than a lot of other people down there who had a ‘D’ after their name.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-says-hes-a-socialist-his-old-socialist-buddies-say-not-so-much/2015/07/25/a3948256-3145-11e5-97ae-30a30cca95d7_story.html

some really interesting articles, besides what i excerpt. i have had a blast reading about sanders history that is very public. there is not a single thing that makes me dislike the man, or think less of him. whether i agree with his position and how he is running his campaign or not. i applaud 4 decades of his consistency. he is clear and articulate about his position, what he thinks and how he feels we should move forward. and i do not have an issue with him being a politician, seeing how he is a politician and he wants to win. it was a win win win all around. i always strive for win win win.