President Bernie Sanders (shudder)?

Via Burlington Free Press:

It’s not every day a U.S. senator drops by the high school in Philadelphia, Miss., (population 7,477) to speak to students.

But that’s what Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., did on Oct. 17, kicking off a three-day speaking tour of four Southern states, a trip that has since stirred talk he might run for president in 2016.

“They enjoyed the fact he didn’t just stand and lecture them,” Kellie Penson, a school official, said of the students who heard Sanders speak. “He actually interacted with them and let them ask questions. He didn’t just talk down to them.”

Sanders had a reason for making Philadephia, Miss., the first stop on his visit to the South, he said in an interview this week. […]

“Under normal times, it’s fine, you have a moderate Democrat running, a moderate Republican running,” Sanders said. “These are not normal times. The United States right now is in the middle of a severe crisis and you have to call it what it is.”

Sanders said if he does run, he would “probably” do so as an independent. It’s a label that has been of value to him in his statewide races but could become a complication as a presidential hopeful.