This was the top story on Salon today. Unfortunately, it’s true that Bernie Sanders hasn’t ruled out a 3rd party run. It’s interesting that the subheading calls him a democratic socialist, which while true, suggests he isn’t beholden to the Democratic Party.
Salon headlined this screed against Hillary Clinton by floating the idea that Bernie Sanders’ vague response was actually “(slightly)” leaving the door open, as if he’d really consider throwing the election into total chaos.
I hope Bernie clarifies his position on whether he’d accept a Green Party nomination.
The Salon piece removes the Sanders quote from context. The full quote is in answer to the question by the Live Satellite News reporter asking “if polls shows that you would beat Donald Trump as a Green Party candidate would you run?” Sanders does say “right now, our goal is to win the Democratic nomination” which is the quote in the article below. Omitted is the end of that sentence: “that’s the promise that I made.” Unfortunately he also used the phrase “right now” which can be construed as his leaving the door open, even though he follows that with what could seem like a contradictory statement.
Parsing that statement one could say that just saying his goal is to win the Democratic Party nomination, however he doesn’t say what he’d do if he loses the Democratic nomination. He could have said that he’d support Hillary Clinton and encourage his own supporters to rally behind her to defeat Donald Trump.
Before a rally in Santa Monica, Senator Bernie Sanders was asked by Live Satellite News about the offer by Jill Stein (see video), the Green Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, for him to run with the Green Party. Sanders response left open the door to running as a Green. He could have easily rejected the offer of a Sanders-Stein ticket, instead he said: “Right now, our goal is to win the Democratic nomination.” (my emphasis)
Don’t rule it out: Bernie Sanders (slightly) leaves door open for Green Party run with Jill Stein
