The Weekend is Bernie’s

Bernie Sanders, the Independent (capital I) Senator from Vermont,  says he might just go ahead and run for  president, if he doesn’t have  anything better to do.  It wasn’t so  much a formal announcement as it was an off-handed  remark during a magazine interview, but somehow news of it got out on  Friday, which is shrewd political timing, maximum viewage.  It’s possible to be a cool, old, Hippie Senator from a state which is proud to be next to Massachussets, and  still be a political thug, and I mean that  in a good way.

Oh, and did I mention he’s Jewish?

I like Bernie.  He’s a liberal, in a world where there are no more liberals.  I think he would make an awesome president.  Nonetheless, I see a couple of ways this could go bad.

First, if he runs as an Independent (and not in the Democratic primaries), then Hillary gets the Democratic nomination and Bernie becomes Hillary’s Ralph Nader and the  world says hello to President Chris Christie, provided  he doesn’t actually have to do  time for that little incident where he closed the bridge during rush hour just for the laughs.

If he runs in the  Democratic primaries, and wins, he might lose in the general election because the word ‘socialist’ gets thrown around a lot, and here’s the weird thing:  I seem to recall that Bernie Sanders used to identify as a Socialist, and recently niced it up to Independent,  so I went over to his Wikipedia page and didn’t see the word ‘Socialist’ once, but I’m sure the Black Ops boys over at the underground Republican bunker are aware of it and will use it.  Say hello to President Christie.

Maybe I’m underestimating Sanders, and maybe I’m underestimating America.  Maybe people are starting to realize that maybe just a smidgin of socialism might be a good thing – better public transport would be a start.

In the early days of 2008, I thought  “This is nuts.  The only way the Democrats could possibly lose this election is if they nominate a black guy.”  But, he did well in my home state of Iowa, and not too bad in Senator Sanders’ beautiful state of Vermont, which I’d love to visit someday.  New England and Alaska are the only two parts of the U.S. I haven’t been to.

But, I digress.  I’m a little bit high, like Michele Bachman is a little bit crazy, and need to tie this up: If Sanders runs and wins, it’s great, but that’s not how I see it playing out.  I hope he’s taking the risks into consideration.