http://inthesetimes.com/article/17572/bernie_sanders_president
If Bernie Sanders Runs For President, It Won’t Be as an
Independent: “I will not be a spoiler”
The Vermont independent also pledged to push for a law change
that would allow supervisors to start making overtime.
BY CONNOR JONES
Sanders said he would take a different approach to the
Democratic Party’s strategy of trying to beat Republicans in the big money
game. Rather than view grassroots activism as a way to get elected, Sanders
wants to make it the norm in progressive politics.
Over 3,000 activists and donors joined a Democracy for
America (DFA) conference call with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on
Wednesday night to discuss how Democrats can move forward their agenda after
losing control of the Senate. Amid the uncertainty of a Republican majority in
Congress and a President itching
for bipartisan compromise, DFA members sought to alleviate one nagging
question: Who will be the progressive standard bearer in 2016?
Naturally, “Will you run for president in 2016?” was the
first question DFA Executive Director Charles Chamberlain asked Sanders. Though
not definitive, his answer was enough to leave these activists hopeful.
“I am giving very serious consideration to it, but before you
make a decision of that magnitude, … you have to make sure that you can do it
well,” Sanders said. “So what we are doing is reaching out to folks all over
this country trying to determine whether or not we can put the grassroots
organization together that we need.”
Sanders knows he will have to rely on grassroots mobilization
to have a fighting chance at being elected, because his campaign will take on
every monied interest. “If I run, we’ll be taking on the billionaire class,” he
said. “That’s Wall Street, the drug companies, the military industrial
complex.”
To the dismay
some idealists, Sanders rejected the idea of running for president as an
independent. “No matter what I do, I will not be a spoiler,” Sanders said. “I
will not play that role in helping to elect some right-wing Republican as
President of the United States.”
Chamberlain responded by reminding Sanders that DFA already
has some of the grassroots Sanders needs. “I think that you can count on a lot
of DFA members to be right there behind you backing you up if you decide to
run,” Chamberlain said. “I hope that you do.”
Until now, progressive groups like DFA have placed their 2016
hopes in Massachusetts’s Elizabeth Warren, who has flatly denied having any
presidential ambitions. She has a few months to change her mind before she has
to start raising money to remain a serious contender, but, unless she or
Sanders runs, progressive populists are not likely to have a candidate to rally
around. It’s hard to see DFA and MoveOn.org activists turning out for outgoing
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley or former Senator Jim Webb, who have both
expressed interest in running.
The question now, is who will step forward as the alternative
to the pragmatic Hillary
Clinton, who has already started laying
the groundwork for her 2016 campaign.
Sanders spent the remainder of the call establishing his
progressive vision for the country, both wooing and being wooed by his audience
in equal measure.
Sanders drew a sharp contrast between himself and Obama on
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Reiterating his opposition to all free
trade deals, including NAFTA, CAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with
China, which Sanders says has cost America 3 million jobs. He described TPP, a
free trade deal that was negotiated
largely in secret, “a losing proposition for American workers.”
Though TPP’s passage seems likely with Republicans in control
of the Senate, Sanders expressed some optimism that an unlikely coalition
between Democrats and Tea Party Republicans would be enough to kill the
agreement. “We’re going to really need some coalition politics, bringing
together some very, very strange bedfellows,” he said.
The most significant other measure he hopes to accomplish in
the next year is extending Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) protections to
“supervisory” workers.
Under current law, workers in a supervisory role who
make over $23,600 per year are
not entitled to receive overtime pay. The President recently directed Labor
Secretary Thomas Perez to study how to extend the FLSA to cover these workers
via executive action as he similarly ordered for
white collar workers last year.
“My guess is that within a couple of months, you will hear a
changing in the Labor Standards Act that will enable a whole lot of folks to
get time and a half who today do not,” Sanders said.
Throughout the call, Sanders appealed to the working-class
voters who feel that the Democratic Party has left them behind: “There are
millions of people out there who feel that Democrats have not been strong
enough in standing up for the working class, the middle class of this country
and taking on big money interests.”
Sanders said he would take a different approach to the
Democratic Party’s strategy of trying to beat Republicans in the big money
game. Rather than view grassroots activism as a way to get elected, Sanders
wants to make it the norm in progressive politics.
“It is not only absolutely imperative that we mobilize huge
numbers of people for an election, but that those people stay mobilized after the
election,” Sanders said.
“Because if there is a mistake that President Obama
has made, I think he has not been strong in maintaining the ties with the
grassroots that helped elect him president.”
As president, Sanders told New
York that he would organize massive marches on Washington to
demonstrate to members of Congress who really hold power in government: “[W]hen
these congressmen come by the White House and they’re beholden to the Koch
brothers, the super-PACs, or the oil companies, I will say, ‘Do what you want,
but first do one thing for me: Look out the window.’ ”
Sanders plans
to return to Iowa next month to hold a series of town hall meetings
and deliver speeches for progressive groups.
Whether he decides to run or not, Sanders remains the
foremost progressive champion of the power that individual citizens could have
over government: “Sometimes people think, ‘Well I made a phone call, I signed a
petition, it doesn’t really matter.’ Well guess what? It really does matter.”
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