Jill Stein invites Sanders to run for Green PaRTY

Bernie Sanders

​Bernie Sanders has been invited to continue his bid to be presidential nominee by running for the Green Party candidacy for president.

Stein said she would step aside to allow Sanders to seek the nomination at the Party's nominating convention coming up in August at Houston Texas.

Stein is expected to be nominated then. Stein claims that overwhelming numbers of Sanders' supporters are joining the Green Party rather than supporting the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Stein has a near term goal of reaching at least 15 percent national support so she can join  televised debates alongside Trump and Clinton.

Nevertheless, Stein said: “I’ve invited Bernie to sit down explore collaboration – everything is on the table. If he saw that you can’t have a revolutionary campaign in a counter-revolutionary party, he’d be welcomed to the Green party. He could lead the ticket and build a political movement.” Stein said she had made the offer to Sanders at the end of the primary sessions. She had yet to receive a response.

Sanders has been busy trying to ensure that more progressive planks are in the Democratic platform. He has been successful in introducing such measures as the $15 minimum wage. However he has not been successful in introducing opposition to the  Trans-Pacific Partnership even though Hillary Clinton changed her position from supporting the measure to opposing it. A recent attempt to add opposition to the TPP was defeated by a vote of 10 against to 5 four. Only Sanders' supporters voted to add the opposition.

All 187 members of the platform committee are meeting today and tomorrow in Orlando Florida. If Clinton has her supporters vote against opposition to the TPP, perhaps more Sanders' supporters will join the Greens. Hillary faces a dilemma in that Obama is a strong supporter of the TPP as is Wall Street and most of the business community. Trump has made opposition to the TPP a key part of his campaign. If Clinton blocks any mention of opposition to the TPP in the Democratic platform, Trump will say that this shows she really does not oppose it. The New York Times and other sources indicate that Clinton will pledge support for Clinton early next week. If he does so without getting a plank in the Democratic platform against the TPP, he may find that even more of his supporters move to support the Greens.

Stein said of Sanders: "If he continues to declare his full faith in the Democratic party, it will leave many of his supporters very disappointed. That political movement is going to go on – it isn’t going to bury itself in the graveyard alongside Hillary Clinton.” Stein, an environmental activist and former doctor, is trying to woo young voters by promising to make college free and cancel all existing student debt. It remains to be seen if a plank on the issue is added to the Democratic platform as Sanders wants. Stein at present is polling only between 4 to 6 percent far from enough to join the presidential TV debates. Five percent is required to get federal funding in the next election. Being a third party candidate ensures that the press will not bother to cover you. Nine out of ten voters did not know enough about Stein to know if they supported her or not. 

A poll of those who would vote for Sanders if his name were on the ballot showed: “Of those who vote for Sanders when Sanders’ name appears on the ballot, 13% say they will stay home if Sanders name is not on the ballot, 41% vote for Clinton, 15% vote for Johnson, 11% vote for Stein, and 7% defect to Trump.” Gary Johnson is the Libertarian candidate. So the largest number of Sanders' supporters will still vote for Clinton with only 11 percent going to Stein less than to the Libertarian Johnson.

Stein worries little about the fact her candidacy could hurt Democratic electoral chances and result in Hillary losing, saying: “She is the fracking queen. We would be fools to expect Hillary to deal with the climate crisis – the day of reckoning will come closer with her as president. As scary as Trump talks, Hillary has a scary record for warmongering and the neoliberalism. It’s a mistake to think the lesser of two evils will fix things. A lot of people are in the target hairs of a neoliberalist nightmare. Wars are bankrupting us morally and financially. At least when Republicans are elected, people fight – when Democrats are elected, people are lulled into complacency and fall asleep.”

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