Will Bernie Sanders nudge Hillary Clinton to the left?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) of Vermont is becoming a Democrat and running for president. He fills a void left vacant by liberal darling Elizabeth Warren.

|
Mike Segar/Reuters
Sen. Bernie Sanders (D) of Vermont waves to the audience before speaking at the opening of the 2015 National Action Network Convention in New York City earlier this month. Senator Sanders is expected to announce his candidacy for president Thursday.

The battle for the left has been joined. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) of Vermont, a self-described “democratic socialist,” is becoming a Democrat to run for president, his advisers say.

Senator Sanders’s announcement, expected Thursday, sets up a David vs. Goliath scenario against former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is strongly favored to win the Democratic nomination in 2016. But for now, it’s the debate that Sanders may fuel, not the outcome of the primaries, that matters.

Sanders plans to focus on three core issues – income inequality, campaign finance reform, and climate change – informal adviser Tad Devine tells Politico. And by entering the race, he threatens to nudge Mrs. Clinton further to the left than she might otherwise go.

Sanders also fills a void left by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) of Massachusetts, the liberal darling who has declined to run for president.

“That means Sanders may end up serving as the most prominent voice for the left wing of the party – particularly voters who are suspicious of Clinton and her ties to Wall Street,” write Robert Costa and Dan Balz in The Washington Post.

By becoming a Democrat, after a long political career as an independent, Sanders is positioning himself to face Clinton on stage in the party’s primary debates. (As an independent, he would be ineligible.)

But already, in fact, the Sanders-Warren wing of the Democratic Party seems to have had an effect on Clinton. In her announcement video and after, she has struck a more populist tone than she did in her first presidential campaign, in 2008.

Clinton calls herself a champion for “everyday” Americans, and speaks of how “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.” In an e-mail to supporters the morning she announced, she said, "There's something wrong when CEOs make 300 times more than the typical worker.”

Given the controversy over donations to Clinton’s family foundation, plus the large sums she is collecting for her campaign with the help of super-wealthy donors, it’s unclear how much she will be able to focus on the “evils” of big money. It’s also unclear how much Sanders will go after Clinton and her vulnerabilities over money.

Sanders himself plans not to go for the big campaign cash that has become a hallmark of modern campaigns, and instead will solicit small-dollar donations, according to reports.

Sanders also doesn’t want to be a spoiler in the general election.

“The one thing he’s determined not to do is to be another Ralph Nader. And the only way to avoid doing that is to avoid being a third-party candidate from the left in the general election,” Mr. Devine tells Politico, noting that Sanders has long caucused with the Democrats.

Mr. Nader, a six-time independent presidential candidate, was accused of taking crucial votes away from Democratic nominee Al Gore in the razor-close 2000 presidential election.

Today, the great unknown is how big a force the feisty Sanders, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., will become on the Democratic left. Unlike former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, a onetime Republican who has failed to attract much attention after entering the Democratic nomination race earlier this month, Sanders already has a national following.

The Associated Press recalls his “calling card moment” in December 2010, when he “thundered for more than eight hours” from the Senate floor about a tax cut package and Congress’s failure, in his view, to adequately fund education and social programs.

“With his trademark sarcasm, he mocked the rich, yelling: ‘How can I get by on one house? I need five houses, 10 houses! I need three jet planes to take me all over the world!’” the AP reports. “The speech was so popular it crashed the Senate video server. It was later printed in a small book.”

According to advisers, Sanders’s announcement Thursday will be low key, followed by a larger kickoff rally, likely in Vermont. Sanders served as mayor of Burlington, Vt., for most of the 1980s, followed by 16 years in the House. He was elected to the Senate in 2006.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Will Bernie Sanders nudge Hillary Clinton to the left?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2015/0429/Will-Bernie-Sanders-nudge-Hillary-Clinton-to-the-left
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe