U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders could be edging closer to a 2016 presidential run. In an interview with the
Nation published today, Vermont's junior senator said
"I am prepared to run for president of the United States."
"What I do wake up every morning feeling is that this country faces more serious problems than at any time since the Great Depression, and there is a horrendous lack of serious political discourse or ideas out there that can address these crises, and that somebody has got to represent the working-class and the middle-class of this country in standing up to the big-money interests who have so much power over the economic and political life of this country," Sanders told the
Nation. "So I am prepared to run for president of the United States. I don’t believe that I am the only person out there who can fight this fight, but I am certainly prepared to look seriously at that race."
While stopping short of declaring that he will run, Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, openly discussed for the first time what a campaign might look like, acknowledging it would be "unconventional" and rooted (no surprise) in the fight against inequality.
He spoke of the disparate groups he would have to bring together and said he would continue to travel around the country meeting with people in the near future. Most surprisingly, he said he is unsure whether he would run as a Democrat or independent, but discussed that dilemma in some detail.
"I think we’ve got a message that can resonate, that people want to hear, that people need to hear. Time is very important. But I don’t think it makes sense — or that it is necessary — to start a campaign this early," Sanders said.
The author of the piece, John Nichols, is a long-time Sanders chronicler.
As
Seven Days noted in a piece last October speculating about Sanders' presidential ambitions the senator has developed a national, small-dollar fundraising network that brought in 146,460 contributions from roughly half as many people during his last six-year election cycle.
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