I will vote in California’s June primary for Senator Sanders for President. I made my mind up several months ago based on a closer affiliation between my policy views and his positions.
I hope he wins our election and the eventual nomination.
However, if he does not, I fully intend to support Hillary Clinton against the Rethug nominee as our lives as we know it are at stake in this most consequential of elections.
After reading Senator Sanders comments this morning in the LA Times I am even more heartened by my decision as it is clear he has thought about the same consequences and even when encouraged by others to do so, has resoundingly rejected the siren call of a third party run.
Kshama Sawant, the socialist member of Seattle’s City Council, protested at a Clinton rally Tuesday, holding a sign saying “I’m not with her,” a riff on Clinton’s campaign slogan.
Sawant defeated an incumbent Democrat for her seat on the council in 2013, then won reelection in 2015.
“It’s not something in the water we drink here. There’s an opening for a real left alternative, and we’ve demonstrated that it can succeed,” she said in a coffee shop near her home where graffiti on the bathroom wall curses the patriarchy and proclaims “black lives matter.”
Sawant wants Sanders to run as a third-party candidate if he doesn’t get the nomination.
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“If I can’t make it — and we’re going to try as hard as we can until the last vote is cast — we want to completely revitalize the Democratic Party and make it a party of the people rather than one of large campaign contributors,” he told the online liberal news program “The Young Turks.”
Thank you, Senator Sanders for understanding the value of the stakes at hand. I want you to lead but if my choice is not nominated I want us to still prevail against the forces aligned by the Rethugs for theirs is a vision truly horrible to behold.