Bernie Sanders is the reason Iowa went so wrong and now his supporters are handing Trump ammunition.

[ehrnst]

131. "My own feeling is that the Democratic Party is ideologically bankrupt."

"You don’t change the system from within the Democratic Party.”

“We have to ask ourselves, ‘Why should we work within the Democratic Party if we don’t agree with anything the Democratic Party says?’”

At least you can give everyone else on the ticket, including Warren and Bloomberg credit for not talking about the Democratic party in those terms, right? I mean, as long as you're damning someone for party affiliation in the past, talking that way about Democrats in the past is at least as much of "a stain on one's credibility as a Democrat" as you put it, right? At least be consistent.

But if the idea is to question his right to run as a Democrat because he once was not then I again refer you to Warren and especially to Mike "Stop and Frisk" Bloomberg. At least be consistent.

Now you're trying to flog a poor straw man with that moving goalpost... I never questioned his right to run as a Democrat, that's your invention. Perhaps your confusing me with someone else you're arguing with? In any case, that's where your goalpost hit the mud. The DNC is generous enough to let candidates who have not even served as Democrats on the ticket, and that's enough for me. Bernie should be grateful, because as he said, he wouldn't have the money or the media exposure otherwise. But he is, in his own words, "not a Democrat." He puts a D next to his name on a primary ballot only. Have any other candidates registered to run for future elections as something other than a Democrat? Get back with us on that, will you?

You can knock Warren or even Bloomberg on their positions if you disagree with them. That's fair. But if your idea is to bestow somehow more cred on Bernie as a "less stained" Democrat than Warren or Bloomberg because his previous party affiliations were "independent" - you know like that paragon of virtue, Joe Leiberman... and Socialist Workers Party, but were not (clutches pearls) private citizens voting as Republicans, I again refer you to the statements above, for which he has never expressed regret for, nor apologized for despite contradicting himself on "working within the Democratic party" and the like of which have never been uttered by any other candidate on the ticket.

When others in the field say things like the above about Democrats, even if they are not on their "resume" or refuse to run as a Democrat in a General after running in their Senate primary on the Democratic ticket, then your equivalency will cease to be false.

Anything else you want to bring up?