In an interview with ThinkProgress following her campaign launch event Tuesday, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said she is glad independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, but that she is a better spokesperson for progressives because she will be in the race through the general election.
Stein told the website, “What Bernie is doing, speaking truth to power, is a wonderful thing. It’s been done many times before within the Democratic Party. But one only has to look at the inspired campaign of Jesse Jackson to see where that goes. It’s a wonderful flourish, but when it’s over, it’s over. And the party continues to march to the right.” She also implied that after his campaign ends, Sanders will endorse “Hillary Clinton or whatever corporate Democrat” wins that party’s nomination.
Stein also criticized Sanders for his support for “providing weapons to the Netanyahu government” in Israel as well as to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and for his opposition to gun control legislation.
Columnist John Nichols, writing on the website of The Nation Wednesday afternoon, says Stein “has some great ideas about how to create ‘deep system change, moving from the greed and exploitation of corporate capitalism to a human-centered economy that puts people, planet and peace over profit,'” and says the Sanders candidacy “suggests the potential for dissident candidacies that challenge the political, social, and economic status quo.”
Nichols says the Stein campaign has “a smart, ambitious plan for busting through the barriers” to ballot access. Noting the Green Party’s joining of a lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates, Nichols argues that “Americans of every partisanship and ideology must support” open debates.
Stein also got a bit of mainstream political media coverage on Politico Wednesday evening, in a brief item headlined “LEFT OF BERNIE” that says Stein “won nearly 500,000 votes in 2012.”
That isn’t exactly speculative. Sanders himself has said the same thing. That’s why his running as a Democrat, he said he doesn’t want to be a “spoiler” and refuses to be the next Nader, etc.. ‘The worst Democrat is better than the best Republican’ is a fair summary of his position on the topic. Of course he’s going to endorse the Democratic nominee. He always has, and in fact that is part of his longstanding deal with the Dems to support his congressional elections, alongside caucusing with the Dems.
Once a Demopublican duopolist, always a Demopublican duopolist. Watch what Sanders does, not what he says. Watch what all politicians do and cover your ears when they flap their gums.