If Democrats nominate someone as extreme as Sanders, I'm afraid we could see [View all]

[highplainsdem]

a viable centrist party start to take shape as an alternative.

I don't want to see that.

I've identified as a Democrat for as long as I can recall being aware of politics, starting with the 1960 campaign.

I've loved the Democratic Party as a big-tent party that provided a strong contrast to the Republicans without being so extreme it drove out moderates.

But now it looks possible that we might nominate someone from the left of the party, who's run as a Democrat only for short periods, for personal convenience and ambition, and then left the party again.

We might nominate someone with a top surrogate who's complained that the Democratic Party is too big a tent.

We might nominate someone who's too extreme for the majority of the party but ekes out a primary victory because there are too many Democrats in the race who aren't so extreme, dividing up the vote of the majority of the party.

And while attempts to form a centrist party to appeal to both moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, as well as independents, have failed in the past, they've failed at times when the Democrats hadn't gambled on a self-described socialist who's rarely a member of the Democratic Party, and is often a critic of it.

I do not want to see this country end up like countries that have several splintered parties with narrow platforms and ideologies.

I believe nominating Sanders will push us in that direction.

So for the sake of the Democratic Party and American politics in general, I hope he will not be our nominee.