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Green Party Intrigue: Jill Stein’s Tweet To Bernie Sanders Adds Yet Another Wild Card For Superdelegates To Consider

By Dawn Papple
Published on: 03:47 PST, Apr 27, 2016

After delivering an Earth Day message to Bernie Sander’s supporters and penning an open letter to the Vermont Senator, the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein tweeted an intriguing message about the fiercely popular Democratic nominee. Jill Stein is the Green Party’s presumed candidate for president. On her website, Stein asked Senator Sanders to consider ditching his affiliation with the Democratic Party if the party doesn’t choose him as their candidate, considering “this wildly unpredictable election where the old rules are giving way one by one.”

Yet, as the Tuesday primaries unfolded, Stein’s offer remained unaccepted, Salon reported. After the poll results came in, amidst more accusations of voter fraud and voter suppression, Stein tweeted to Sanders again, asking him to join the Green Party.

Tuesday, one vague tweet from the Green Party’s leader caused an online stir and introduced a new wild card that superdelegates will have to consider at their convention in July, some supporters say.

Bernie Sanders has served as an elected official for just over 34 years. Bernie has 20 years more political experience as an elected official than any president the nation has elected since the advent of modern presidential electioneering, according to stats provided by The Atlantic. So, is the Green Party hoping to offer Sanders the presidential spot that is presumed reserved for Stein? Would that alter the votes of the superdelegates if they thought Bernie could end up running for president anyway?

The former Communications Director for Jill Stein interviewed the Green Party leader in a podcast, and the two discussed whether a Sanders/Stein ticket could win in a three-way race against Trump and Clinton – theoretically, of course. Sanders has refused the Green Party’s courting in the past, and he says he won’t play the part of the spoiler. Still, supporters of the idea point out that the Green Party National Convention takes place in August, following the Democratic National Convention in July. On social media, many have said that superdelegates should consider that hundreds of thousands of Sanders’ supporters might demand that he accept Stein’s offer.

Given that more Americans are Independents than are affiliated with either Democrats or Republicans, Sanders running in an actual third party could be a serious threat to both, Stein claims.

Late last year, after Bernie Sanders’ campaign members found themselves locked out of the DNC database, Seattle city councilwoman Kshama Sawant joined with others and launched the #Movement4Bernie campaign. Due to the recent surge in purged voters, an online petition associated with that campaign has now garnered in excess of 22,000 signatures asking Senator Sanders to run as an Independent or with the Green Party if Clinton walks away as the Democratic nominee. Bernie or Busters don’t appear to be bluffing. They have even voiced the opinion that, if election fraud is proven and he loses the nomination because of it, Sanders will feel a moral obligation to his supporters to join their #BernieOrBust campaign.

Though The Wall Street Journal posted poll results indicating upwards of one-third of almost all Bernie Sanders’ supporters would never vote for Clinton, an unofficial Facebook pollster claims to have polled nearly two dozen different Facebook groups with between 100,000 and 10,000 people each, and the results allegedly showed that all self-proclaimed Berners would vote for Sanders if he were to run on his own. Over 13,000 people have already signed a petition actually asking Bernie Sanders to run as an independent if he were to lose the Democratic nomination.

“Forty percent of voters in New York who are Sanders’ voters said they would not vote for Clinton. That’s a major problem for the Democratic Party,” journalist Sam Sacks told Sputnik News. Sacks opined that if Sanders should lose the Democratic nomination, millions of his supporters might not support nor vote for Clinton in November.

Sanders doesn’t seem too desperate for either back up plan in his run for the White House, though.

Sanders and most of his supporters are absolutely set on taking the Democratic Party at the convention this summer. Between fighting reports of alleged election fraud and voter suppression head on, appealing to caucus states, convincing superdelegates to side with Sanders, and planning to sweep future states like California and Oregon, Sanders’ supporters and even the Sanders’ campaign say that they are in it to win it at the convention.

In fact, at a rally at Purdue University in Indiana, Bernie just reiterated that Team Sanders has no intention of losing the nomination, Political Times reported.

“Let me make it clear so there is no confusion: We are in this campaign to win and become the Democratic nominee.”

Acknowledging being behind in delegates, Sanders told a crowd at Purdue that “unusual things happen in politics” and stated that, with help from his supporters, they can win the pledged delegates they need and convince the superdelegates that he will be the strongest candidate in a fight against Donald Trump. Then, Sanders again reminded people that the November election won’t face the same purging-party issues or affiliation limitations that the primaries did.

“What I hope delegates to the convention understand is that the national election is an open process. Guess what? Independents vote in that process. And it turns out that we are overwhelmingly winning the independent vote.”

Bernie’s supporters even have a massive march planned for the DNC. This summer, on the day of the Democratic National Convention, they say that they will meet in Philadelphia and march to the Wells Fargo Center to show their support for Bernie Sanders in the hopes of swaying superdelegates.

In yet another significant election twist, California billionaire Tom Steyer just pledged at least $25 million in an effort to get millennials registered to vote in order “to elect a climate champion to the White House in 2016.”

The Democratic superdelegates are supposed to use their massive vote-weight to help nominate the candidate that will best beat the GOP candidate in November. These superdelegates won’t be able to ignore the fact that Sanders has a Green Party option, if he chooses and is asked by his supporters to accept it… And that wild card might actually be the trump card that could secure Bernie’s Democratic nomination after all.

[Photo by Brian Stansberry | Wikipedia | Creative Commons 3.0 | cropped]

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