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"For the third time, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Will give a response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday night," the press release to reporters told reporters. Monday afternoon.
It's a very bad idea for Sanders.
Why? Simple. Because Sanders is a near-sure candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. (He has not yet announced his candidacy, but everyone expects that '' he does it.) But he is – and intends to remain – independent in the Senate, identifying himself as a democratic socialist, not a democrat.
During the 2016 campaign, while Sanders was organizing a surprisingly competitive challenge against Hillary Clinton in the first democratic fight, there were murmurs – which turned into screams at the end of the race – that Sanders was even not a "true" democrat, so how could he be allowed to run for the party?
"The dilemma is that, if you stand outside the Democratic Party … you're not just running for a presidential race, you're really heading towards building a whole political movement." By doing so, you would take away votes of the Democratic candidate and which allows a right-wing Republican to be elected more easily: the [Ralph] Nader dilemma (…) The bolder and more radical approach is clearly outside the two-party system, "he added." Do people believe that there is the possibility of creating a third party movement? Or is it an idea that is simply not realistic at this point in history? "
That is to say, Sanders acknowledged that he could not have a realistic chance of running as a third party candidate and so decided to run as a Democrat. He registered as a democrat but was unsubscribed at the end of the race.
All this brings me to this: in a non-negligible part of the Democratic Party, there remains a little bad will towards Sanders for his role in the 2016 campaign and doubts about the firmness of his commitment to the Democratic Party. .
Given that, why, why, why would you choose to deliver your own SOTU response? Why not let Abrams take care of it? Why differentiate yourself as special and different from the party you want to lead in 2020 – especially when you know that people in this party already doubt the determination of your commitment?
(Sidebar: Yes, I know that Californian Senator Kamala Harris, who is also running the presidency of the Board of Directors in 2020, is about to present a pre-SOTU conference before Trump speaks tonight. "True Blue Democrat Sanders is." No one has nor will question Harris' commitment to the Democratic Party and its principles – it has always been a Democrat Sanders, well, no. )
What Sanders does by giving his own answer to SOTU sends a very clear sign that he is different from the rest of the Democrats who run for office. I am in my own party and I will give my own answer on the state of the Union!
That will please his loyalists. The problem for Sanders is that, in an area populated by important heavyweight Democrats – and rising stars -, the fact of being simply a liberal alternative to the establishment (in the form of Clinton 2016) will probably not be enough.
Democratic voters in 2020 will have candidates who not only represent their own liberal views, but who have also aligned themselves with the Democratic Party all their lives. And that can leave Sanders outside.
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