Sanders Is Not a Democrat
Politico’s lead story Monday morning is the Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) looks like he’s preparing to run for the White House again in 2020.Â
“The Vermont senator is taking aggressive steps to address long-running political weaknesses, like his lack of foreign policy bona fides,” Politico’s Gabriel Debenedetti reports.
From forging closer ties to the labor movement to shoring up his once-flimsy foreign policy credentials, the moves have provided the senator inroads into party power structures that largely shunned him in favor of Hillary Clinton last year. They’ve also empowered the progressive icon to harness his newfound political power and help Democrats fight President Donald Trump’s administration.
Sanders has been working closely with figures who are close to the party establishment he’s long railed against, like American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. And he’s been meeting with international affairs experts such as Bill Perry, a defense secretary in the administration of President Bill Clinton, around a series of speeches designed to define his international vision, one year after running a campaign heavy on domestic policy and light on the rest of the world.
Politico says Sanders has not decided if he will run for president again. He ran as a Democrat in 2016 but reverted back to being an independent after the election.
On Friday, The Hill reported Democratic insiders see as many as 30 Democratic candidates competing for the 2020 nomination.
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Image by Mitchel Raphael/Broadbent Institute via Flickr and a CC license
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