{"id":48574,"date":"2015-08-12T07:42:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T11:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/?p=48574"},"modified":"2015-08-12T07:42:59","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T11:42:59","slug":"can-bernie-sanders-win-the-love-of-a-party-he-scorns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/2015\/08\/can-bernie-sanders-win-the-love-of-a-party-he-scorns\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Bernie Sanders Win the Love of a Party He Scorns?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/magazine\/story\/2015\/08\/bernie-sanders-2016-democrats-121181.html?hp=b3_l2#.VcsvZ3FVjjY\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"  aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/150809_kruse_sanders2_ap.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"345\" height=\"187\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>He has never before chosen to run in a Democratic primary, but here he is, challenging Hillary Clinton\u2014and doing it as an independent, technically permissible but highly unusual. How he\u2019s trying to do this is how he always has\u2014a calculated alchemy of outsider edge and insider smarts, provocation plus pragmatism, all learned and honed over what\u2019s become a unique career in modern American politics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe plays it both ways,\u201d said former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin, a Democrat who once successfully fended off Sanders from the left in a reelection bid. \u201cHe wants to be different, and yet he wants to belong\u2014for political purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sanders is nipping at Clinton in the polls, for now\u2014but anybody who wants to, like Clinton, her campaign or its associated machinery, can fill fat files with quotes from Sanders in which he denigrates the Democratic Party whose mantle of legitimacy gives him a stature that unaffiliated candidates rarely enjoy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClearly, it\u2019s something he should answer for,\u201d Democratic former Congressman Barney Frank said.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with <span class=\"small-caps\">Politico<\/span> on the Senate subway, Sanders didn\u2019t walk away from his criticism of Democrats\u2014although he insisted he has developed over his long career a strong relationship with the party in Vermont, in Washington and the nation. Asked whether he still believed the party is \u201cideologically bankrupt,\u201d Sanders answered by not answering the question.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think what we have today is, I think, a Republican Party which has moved from a center-right party over the last decades to a right-wing extremist party,\u201d he said, the subway whooshing him from the Capitol to his office. \u201cI think you have a Democratic Party which is not as strong as it should be in standing up for the working class of this country and taking on big-money interests. And that\u2019s been my view for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sanders shut down follow-ups.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>READ FULL ARTICLE\u00a0+&gt;\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/magazine\/story\/2015\/08\/bernie-sanders-2016-democrats-121181.html\">Can Bernie Sanders Win the Love of a Party He Scorns<\/a>?<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He has never before chosen to run in a Democratic primary, but here he is, challenging Hillary Clinton\u2014and doing it as an independent, technically permissible but highly unusual. How he\u2019s trying to do this is how he always has\u2014a calculated alchemy of outsider edge and insider smarts, provocation plus pragmatism, all learned and honed over&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1774,1628,22,68],"tags":[90,44,1877],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48574"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48577,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48574\/revisions\/48577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}