Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who identifies as a socialist, is “thinking about running for president” in 2016 as a Democrat, Sanders said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
Sanders has been a member of Congress since 1991, and his timing appears to indicate he believes Democrats are more receptive to a socialist candidate now than at any time before.
He is decidedly to the left of President Obama, whom Sanders said “should have understood from Day One that the Republicans” were not willing to negotiate. Sanders has traditionally caucused with Democrats in the Senate.
Sanders said, though, he would need to go through the Democratic primaries to win the presidency, because “how do you set up a 50-state infrastructure,” he asked, to win as an independent.
He said the country is ready because “there is a profound anger … that the middle class is disappearing.”
