How Bernie Could Run as an Independent without Risking a GOP Victory
Bernie Sanders has said that, should he fail to win the Democratic nomination he would not run for President in the general election because he would fear taking votes away from Hillary and risking a Republican victory.
But there is a way to do it, not only without risking a Republican victory, but by decreasing, perhaps substantially, the probability of a Republican victory.
This election is too important for him not to run. It looks like the nominee of both major parties is going to be either a conservative President who is beholding to the wealthy corporate interests that fund their campaigns or (in the case of Donald Trump) a radical right wing nut case. This would leave the vast majority of Americans unrepresented by whoever wins.
Additionally, it is becoming more and more evident that this election is being stolen from Bernie, with massive purging of registered voters, huge deviations of official vote counts from exit polls, and sworn testimony of a fake audit in Chigago, in which the hand counted vote didn’t match the machine count, so the auditors fixed the discrepancy by changing the hand count (which favored Bernie) to match the machine count (which favored Hillary), in order to get rid of the it.
This is very depressing. I have little doubt that if not for election fraud, Bernie would be well on his way to the Democratic nomination by now. But this issue goes way beyond Bernie. If such things are allowed to stand, we have no democracy left.
Why running as an Independent, with certain precautions, will markedly reduce the likelihood of a Republican victory
There are several reasons:
1) Dropping out of states where his presence risks a Republican victory
It has been suggested that Bernie could run only in states that are solidly blue or solidly red. I’m not sure that that alone would assure that the Republican doesn’t win a solidly blue state, if Hillary and Bernie split the vote between them.
However, if polling shows that that is a possibility, Bernie could drop out of the race in those states. Or better yet, whoever is losing in the polling between him and Hillary by a certain date could drop out. In fact, with such a plan he could run in all 50 states, and drop out when and where needed.
2) Bernie would be the only anti-establishment candidate in the race
There is very strong anti-establishment sentiment in this country. This is manifested by record low favorability ratings for Congress in recent years, often dropping down into single digits and rarely rising above 20%, and by negative net favorability ratings of all current Presidential candidates of either party except for Bernie.
Consequently, the vote may be split among the establishment candidates rather than by Party. The likelihood of this happening is especially great because of Bernie’s huge popularity and the fact that both the Democratic and Republican Parties today make up only a minority of our population (26% Republicans, 29% Democrats, and 42% independents).
3) Hillary would be highly vulnerable should she win the Democratic nomination
First we have the fact that she has a net negative favorability rating of minus 14%. Second, there is an impending indictment against her. Should that occur, and many believe it will, that could make her ratings go so negative that she has no chance of winning. Third, Bernie does far better in national head to head polling against any of the Republican candidates than Hillary does. And fourth, I have heard that some have transcripts or videos of her speeches to Wall Street (for which she has received vast amounts of money), and they are waiting for her nomination before releasing them (It would be counterproductive to release them prior to her nomination, because that could prevent her nomination).
4) More exposure for a non-Republican could combine the strengths of both Bernie and Hillary
Bernie has increased his popularity tremendously since announcing his candidacy. He has risen from single digits in national polling of Democrats to draw almost even with Hillary. Add to that the fact that he has much more popularity than Hillary among independents, and we can see why he does so much better than Hillary against potential Republican candidates.
Should they both run simultaneously, more people will get to know him better, and he is likely to rise even further in the polls. Should he or Hillary drop out of states near the end if one or the other is jeopardizing a victory over the Republican by the other, the one would throw their support to the other and thereby add immensely to their vote total. To consolidate that support, they could even agree to make the other one their running mate.
A monumental example of a third party victory that changed our country for the better
The 1860 Presidential race was a time where change was in the air, and the ingrained and evil institution of slavery was the biggest issue of the time. Because of turmoil among the major parties, there were four apparently viable candidates who ran in the election. The Republican Party was the only anti-slavery party, and in fact anti-slavery was the cause that gave birth to their party, which ran its first Presidential candidate four years earlier and made a respectable showing with 33% of the popular vote.
Abe Lincoln was nominated for President by the anti-slavery Republican Party. Two of the other parties that ran that year were highly pro-slavery, and the other just avoided the issue altogether. That made the Republican candidate stand out as running in the only party that was avowedly anti-slavery.
Because of his anti-slavery stance, Lincoln was not even on the ballot in any of the Southern slavery states. But he still managed to win almost 40% of the national vote, and he won the electoral votes of every state in the country that was neither a slavery nor a border slavery state.
I have heard many people say that the Civil War was fought not to abolish slavery, but to save the Union, i.e. prevent our country from disintegrating. That statement is only partially true, because the only reason that the Union threatened to disintegrate was over the slavery issue. Abe Lincoln had been passionately against slavery all of his adult life (though he was careful about how he worded the issue in campaign speeches). The Civil War was fought because the South attempted to secede from the Union because they could not tolerate a Party in power as anti-slavery as the Republican Party or a President as anti-slavery as Lincoln. As we all know, the Civil War ended that horrible stain on our country (though anti-black policies and laws continued to plague our country as they still do today).
The issue of election fraud in our country
I have little doubt that Bernie would win the presidency in a fair election, whether it be a two way or a three way race. He is truly a political phenomenon. However, there are numerous examples of election fraud in our country in recent years, and it always favors the more conservative, pro-establishment candidate. This is an issue that needs to be addressed vigorously no matter who runs. If Bernie runs, either as a Democrat or an Independent, he needs to take this issue very seriously and devote large amounts of his campaign money to lawyers and IT people who can figure out how to prevent it from ruining the election, as it has so far tremendously hurt his Democratic primary campaign, except in caucus states, where fraud is so much more difficult to pull off. His own staff needs to do that because, sadly, neither our own government nor our national news media takes this issue seriously. That is why our country’s election system is rated last among Western democracies.
A petition
There is a petition circulating at another site that I belong to, urging Bernie to run as an independent. It has 13,391 signatures so far. I am not including it in this post because it doesn’t contain an option to comment on safeguards (against making a Republican victory more likely) such as those that I mentioned above, even though the author of the petition discussed some of those safeguards in his or her post and in the petition itself. I have suggested that s/he add that option to the petition, and if that happens I will get back with you all about it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
That made me snort coffee through my nose. Thank you. 
So basically even the Bernie people recognize this as against the TOS.
Basically Bernie would get a few independents, Hillary would get the base, and Cruz or Trump would win.
Anyhow TFC I know you feel passionately but this is kind of a risky OP and lesser heads have rolled for less, but I guess you know that. 
Bookmarking!
the strong reactions indicate you are on to something 
just sayin'.
nice OP.
