“If the question is, am I actively right now organizing and raising money and so forth for a campaign for president, I am not doing that. On the other hand, am I talking to people around the country? Yes, I am. Will I be doing some traveling around the country? Yes, I will be. But I think it’s premature to be talking about (the specifics of) a campaign when we still have a 2014 congressional race in front of us.” — U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont) speaking to Truthout’s John Nichols in an interview published today (3.7).

I know that left to her own devices, Hillary Clinton (who all but has the Democratic Presidential nomination in the bag) is a moderate conversative (like President Obama) with hawkish foreign-policy leanings. She is too rich and connected to really improve things. She will be a status-quo centrist president. She will steer the ship with competence but she will not challenge or police the Wall Street criminal class. She is not Eliot Spitzer. I think she needs to pressured and pushed by a progressive challenger on the left during the 2016 primaries. Sanders is a man of immense intelligence and compassion and conviction and balls. He has my vote right now, I can tell you that.

“Obviously, if I run, both in terms of the positions that I’ll be advocating, and the process itself, it will have to be a very unconventional campaign. I think there is profound disgust among the American people for the conventional political process and the never-ending campaigns. If I run, my job is to help bring together the kind of coalition that can win — that can transform politics. We’ve got to bring together trade unionists and working families, our minority communities, environmentalists, young people, the women’s community, the gay community, seniors, veterans, the people who in fact are the vast majority of the American population. We’ve got to create a progressive agenda and rally people around that agenda.”