Source:Salon Magazine– U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Democratic Socialist, Socialist Republic of Vermont)

“Bernie Sanders held his first major presidential campaign event in Vermont yesterday afternoon after kicking off his 2016 bid with a delightfully offbeat Capitol Hill press conference. The tone of the coverage surrounding Sanders’ campaign doesn’t necessarily reflect it, but Vermont’s independent senator is actually pulling in a decent share of the Democratic vote. As of this writing, his support in national polling has climbed up into double digits, and the last few polls out of Iowa and New Hampshire put him at around 14 or 15 percent in those states. Of course, those numbers have to be measured against those of his chief rival, Hillary Clinton, who dominates both nationally and in the early states with more than 50 percent.

So Sanders is a long shot, but he’s not without a sizable bloc of support. In fact, when you crunch the numbers, Sanders is outperforming the combined support of several GOP presidential wannabes. The Bernie 2016 boomlet is clearly a bit puzzling to reporters, who don’t seem to know what to do with Sanders beyond treating him as a foil to Hillary, and so they default to doing nothing, even as every utterance of GOP candidates who are polling below 2 percent merits its own headline. There are clear double standards at play, and one of them pertains to how reporters cover a candidate who is unreservedly liberal versus how they cover “proudly conservative” Republicans. This dynamic is sometimes subtle, and it emerged during an interview Sanders gave with CNBC’s John Harwood.”

From Salon Magazine

“Hey, Bernie Sanders is a Socialist and so am I! I just didn’t have the balls to admit it when he did. And I didn’t have the balls to admit it before he decided to run for president. Even though Bernie has been in Congress for now twenty-four years, including the last eight in the Senate.”

That is the main effect that a Bernie Sanders presidential campaign will have on the 2016 presidential race. People who up until now called themselves Progressives (or even worst, at least from my perspective Liberals) even though they represent the Far-Left in America, will now call themselves Socialists, or Democratic Socialists. Because, that is what their leader calls himself and they share his politics.

Actually, even though Senator Sanders is the only self-described Democratic Socialist in the U.S. Congress, (and I emphasize self-described) he’s fairly moderate and mainstream to people who will be supporting him. He might even be moderate and mainstream to a lot of the so-called Congressional Progressive Caucus, (Democratic Socialists of America, in actuality) which he’s a member of, with most of the CPC members being in the House. I bet most of the CPC members in the House couldn’t get elected statewide. To use as an example: they need gerrymandered districts to keep getting reelected. Senator Sanders, represents the Socialist Republic of Vermont, as its called, but we’re still talking about an entire state. Not just part of one.

But, I wouldn’t support a Democratic Socialist for president, unless it was Bernie Sanders, or Mike Huckabee, or Rick Santorum. I could see my wallet and money running for the hills without me. Looking for new ownership, if they heard I was voting for Bernie Sanders for president. But I’m glad he’s running for president. Because it will give Democratic Socialists in the Democratic Party the opportunity to admit to who they are and own the socialist label and stop running from it. And say, “Bernie Sanders, is a Democratic Socialist and so am I. I’ve always been one and just didn’t have the balls to admit to it. Because of the negative stereotypes that comes with socialism in America.”