"Is Sanders 2016 Becoming Nader 2000?"
By BILL SCHER May 16, 2016
"Bernie Sanders, for all his talk of revolution, never wanted to be Ralph Nader. He has a long history of keeping the Democratic Party at arm’s length, but he also has a long history of rejecting spoiler bids. Since 1992, he has always endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee, snubbing Nader’s four left-wing third-party campaigns. He became a Democrat to run for president instead of keeping his “(I)” and following in Nader’s footsteps. He has pledged to support Hillary Clinton if she wins the Democratic nomination and has ripped Donald Trump at every opportunity.
But even if Sanders isn’t deliberately trying to replicate the electoral trauma inflicted by Nader in 2000—when he probably cost Al Gore the presidency—Bernie’s lingering presence in the Democratic primary threatens to produce a similar result in November: delegitimizing the eventual Democratic nominee in the eyes of the left and sending many critics, if not to Trump, then to the Green Party’s Jill Stein or the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson.
...One way would be to follow the lead of Jesse Jackson in 1988, who remained in the race for the entire primary. But when he came to the Democratic convention with 38 percent of the pledged delegates, he went to great lengths to keep his team focused on changing the party over the long haul rather than disrupting the election (though Michael Dukakis still lost). “I’m going to ask you to do a hard thing,” Jackson said to his delegates, “Put your focus on why we're here. If you're following my lead, then reflect my spirit, attitude and discipline. We don't have the time to fill up the media airwaves with pollution.”
...Jackson didn’t quit before it was officially over for the same reason Sanders won’t: more delegates means more influence at the convention. But that’s where Sanders faces a paradox. The potential of using his delegates to make her convention disorderly—forcing floor fights over platform language, nominating himself on the floor, withholding his endorsement—is what gives him leverage. But to unleash convention chaos risks a repeat of 1968, when efforts by Eugene McCarthy’s delegates to wrest the nomination from Hubert Humphrey and include an anti-Vietnam War plank to the platform failed on the convention floor, prompting a livid McCarthy to leave the convention without endorsing the ticket. He gave an extremely reluctant endorsement in the campaign’s final days, and his unwillingness to rally his supporters possibly tipped five states to the Republican winner Richard Nixon."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/is-sanders-2016-becoming-nader-2000-213893#ixzz48vPdU6J5
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