Bernie Sanders would have won running as an Independent

Bernie the Deadbeat The fact is that Sanders did not receive a regular paycheck until he became Mayor of Burlington in '81. We know that Sanders was collecting unemployment at the time of his candidacy, but whether he did so through most of his 20s and 30s is unclear. Certainly, he wasn't making much as a political activist writing articles for small leftist magazines but he did some other odd jobs. There's nothing to indicate whether he ever paid his ex-girlfriend child support for his son born in '69 but since he seldom had enough money to keep his own utilities on, this seems unlikely. [1] If Sanders had entered the general election, we can certain that we would learned much more about Sanders' welfare dependency and the degree to which he supported his child. Bernie the 1%er Nowadays, the Sanders' net worth is generally estimated between $300,000 -$700,000 we can assume that's a low ball based on the est. value of their three homes: $320,000, $600,000, and $726,000. That's also only based on Bernie's salary of $174,000/yr and doesn't factor in that Jane pulled $160,000/yr as President of Burlington College. In Vermont, a household income over $299,000/yr today places you in in the top 1%, so the Sanders likely qualified at least from '06 -'12, which probably explains why Sanders refuses to release his tax returns from earlier than 2014. Certainly, Sanders paid taxes like a 1%er on that one tax return- an effective rate of 13.5% [3] Mrs. Bernie Speaking of Jane, consider the field day the media would have with her destructive tenure as Burlington College President. In 2011, Jane was forced to resign after overseeing a $10 million dollar purchase of a new 33 acre campus from the Archdiocese of Vermont. The loan was was backed by exaggerated claims of promised donations (80% never materialized) and underwritten by the Catholic Church. The 200 student private school with an annual endowment of $250,000 couldn't even make the first payment, costing the Archdiocese about $2 million. Sanders was shown the door but promised to remain active in the school. When the bankrupted school shut its doors this spring, neither Sanders had any comment. Just look at those numbers- a school with a $250,000 endowment was paying more than 64% of that income to pay its president's $160,000 salary and then put up an additional $200,000 golden parachute as a favor for bankrupting the institution. Imagine what Bernie would have said about that if his wife had not been the perpetrator of such high stakes folly. [4] [5] Are any these weaknesses necessarily more damaging than Clinton's or Trump's? Probably not, but most of Clinton's and Trump's deficits were well understood before they ran for president while Sanders' more lofty reputation would have certainly lost more ground as Sanders' drawbacks came under more scrutiny. Pro Actually, Pro provided the path to a Sanders victory. The Electoral college. In case you've missed it. Trump is none to popular among Republicans. And while Democrats wouldn't hesitate to vote against a candidate who won the majority vote. The Reps never would. Con Pro missed the part in R1 where 34 states would not record unregistered write-in votes. Even if Sanders won a majority by write-in at this point, there would be no record to prove it that the House of Representatives need respect. Pro Besides Reps could never govern from such a position anyway. If Sanders won the popular vote, he would be president. Con Really? Congress ignores or opposes the popular will pretty consistently. Gun registration, repealing Citizens United, campaign finance reform, tax reform, decreased defense spending, infrastructure re-investment, rejecting the TPP are among many important issues that enjoy wide-ranging, bipartisan consensus and a mandate for action. Congress ignores these issues because money and influence comes from interest groups who would prefer that these issues be tabled. Whatever the popular will, Congress votes with the money and the money is united in their opposition to Sanders. Does Pro really suppose Paul Ryan could vote to put Sanders in the White House and survive his next election? I don't see any evidence to support such a fantasy. Pro And while I commend Levi for the enormous amount of time he is putting into this debate, I think he is somewhat missing the forest for the trees. Con There is no forest. We're down to one old shrub and a radioactive badger. Pro keeps arguing that there might have been a lovely forest but doesn't seem to care that nobody brought the acorns. Pro Trump can't even win Utah against a real 3rd party candidate. Freakin UTAH!! Really?!? Utah? Con Rather than jump on the most recent polling outlier, let's look the more reliable Real Clear Politics polling average which has Trump up in Utah by +5.8 in a 5 way race. [6] Pro And Clinton can't pull away from Trump. The polls say they are basically tied. Con Today's RCP polling average? Clinton +5.7. Consider that 5 points is considered a landslide and Hillary's been averaging over 5 for the past month. That's not a tie- that's a rout. [7] Pro That's how hated these two are. Con Yeah, but hate's a funny thing. The opposite of hate is not love, it's disinterest. The opposite of love is not hate, it's disinterest. Pro Con runs down Sanders, completely oblivious to the fact that none of that matters. Con I like Sanders and agree with many of concerns. But an objective consideration of the evidence suggests that as a presidential candidate, he would never amount to more than a flash in the pan. He never had the core's support, he never had the big vision for the American future, he didn't have that inner Jingo essential to Commanders-in-Chief or the cutthroat ambition essential to Chief Executives. He didn't know how to force a deal on his terms. Sanders achieved his maximum potential: he brought income inequality to the fore, forced his party to the left, and made socialist less of a dirty word. But Sanders was never going to be president. Pro No one cares, his winning platform is I'm NOT Clinton or Trump. Nothing else matters. He wins in a landslide of popular votes. No way for election committees to ignore the votes of the people. They might resist at first, but that wouldn't last long. Con Since Pro is just repeating, I'll conclude- Voters should note that Pro's argument was exclusively opinion. Pro offered no data or polling or quotes to support his hypothesis. Pro asserted and re-asserted a theory that Sanders could win a non-decision with majority support from the Republican base. This seems no more likely than Elizabeth Warren voting for Trump. Con pointed out that the window of opportunity for a write-In candidate was long past, Pro didn't care. Con asked Pro to explain whether Sander's hypothetical run was after his Democratic race or before. Pro refused to choose because before the primaries, Sanders had little name recognition and after the primaries he would have been a spoiler for Trump. Either way, Sanders small set of political initiatives would have been fairly unpopular amount the general electorate and opposition research would have run his numbers down. Sanders was never going to be president. Please vote CON. [1] http://www.newyorker.com... [2] https://www.google.com... [3] http://www.nationalreview.com... [4] http://www.wcax.com... [5] http://www.wcax.com... [6] http://www.realclearpolitics.com... [7] http://www.realclearpolitics.com...