Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Bernie Sanders: ‘I Am a Democrat Now’

By Peter Nicholas
Nov 8, 2015 2:34 pm ET

Me either, but memory tells me it sure wasn't vermont
they have a home where in DC? or somewhere around there If
I had to guess I'd say he did it there

A longtime independent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders now contends he is a full-fledged Democrat who deserves to be the party’s presidential standard-bearer.

Yet Mr. Sanders has a long record of criticizing the Democratic Party and before the 2012 presidential election took the view that President Barack Obama should be challenged for the party nomination.

Bernie Sanders: ‘I Am a Democrat Now’

That history undercuts the claim that Mr. Sanders is truly committed to the Democratic Party, one of his rivals, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, suggests.

In an appearance on a TV talk show Sunday Mr. Sanders pushed back on the notion that he is not a true Democrat.

“I made a decision in this presidential election that I will run as a Democrat; I am a Democrat now,” Mr. Sanders said on ABC’s “This Week.”

At a candidate forum Friday in South Carolina, Mr. O’Malley took aim at Mr. Sanders’s longstanding identification as an independent.

“I think that when President Obama was running for reelection, I was glad to step up and work very hard for him, while Senator Sanders was trying to find someone to primary him,” Mr. O’Malley said. “I am a Democrat. I’m a lifelong Democrat. I’m not a former independent. I’m not a former Republican. I believe in the party of Franklin Roosevelt, the party of John F. Kennedy.”

Mr. Sanders was a proud independent for much of his political career. In his book, “Outsider in the White House,” he wrote: “Over the years I had been extremely critical of the Democratic Party and its tepidness about fighting for the working families of this country.”

In the same book, he describes the 1996 Democratic convention, in which then-President Bill Clinton was the party’s nominee, as “heavily scripted and entirely poll-driven.”

He gave a radio interview in 2011 in which he said there were “millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president” and said “it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.”

Asked about such comments on ABC, Mr. Sanders said: “The idea that I’ve worked against Barack Obama is categorically false.”

He added that “Barack Obama is a friend of mine. I think he’s been a very strong president and has taken this country … in a very positive way.”


http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/08/bernie-sanders-i-am-a-democrat-now/