Over 3,000 activists and donors joined a Democ­ra­cy for Amer­i­ca (DFA) con­fer­ence call with Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders (I‑Vermont) on Wednes­day night to dis­cuss how Democ­rats can move for­ward their agen­da after los­ing con­trol of the Sen­ate. Amid the uncer­tain­ty of a Repub­li­can major­i­ty in Con­gress and a Pres­i­dent itch­ing for bipar­ti­san com­pro­mise, DFA mem­bers sought to alle­vi­ate one nag­ging ques­tion: Who will be the pro­gres­sive stan­dard bear­er in 2016?

Sanders said he would take a different approach to the Democratic Party’s strategy of trying to beat Republicans in the big money game. Rather than view grassroots activism as a way to get elected, Sanders wants to make it the norm in progressive politics.

Nat­u­ral­ly, ​“Will you run for pres­i­dent in 2016?” was the first ques­tion DFA Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Charles Cham­ber­lain asked Sanders. Though not defin­i­tive, his answer was enough to leave these activists hopeful.

“I am giv­ing very seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to it, but before you make a deci­sion of that mag­ni­tude, … you have to make sure that you can do it well,” Sanders said. ​“So what we are doing is reach­ing out to folks all over this coun­try try­ing to deter­mine whether or not we can put the grass­roots orga­ni­za­tion togeth­er that we need.”

Sanders knows he will have to rely on grass­roots mobi­liza­tion to have a fight­ing chance at being elect­ed, because his cam­paign will take on every monied inter­est. ​“If I run, we’ll be tak­ing on the bil­lion­aire class,” he said. ​“That’s Wall Street, the drug com­pa­nies, the mil­i­tary indus­tri­al complex.”

To the dis­may some ide­al­ists, Sanders reject­ed the idea of run­ning for pres­i­dent as an inde­pen­dent. ​“No mat­ter what I do, I will not be a spoil­er,” Sanders said. ​“I will not play that role in help­ing to elect some right-wing Repub­li­can as Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.”

Cham­ber­lain respond­ed by remind­ing Sanders that DFA already has some of the grass­roots Sanders needs. ​“I think that you can count on a lot of DFA mem­bers to be right there behind you back­ing you up if you decide to run,” Cham­ber­lain said. ​“I hope that you do.”

Until now, pro­gres­sive groups like DFA have placed their 2016 hopes in Massachusetts’s Eliz­a­beth War­ren, who has flat­ly denied hav­ing any pres­i­den­tial ambi­tions. She has a few months to change her mind before she has to start rais­ing mon­ey to remain a seri­ous con­tender, but, unless she or Sanders runs, pro­gres­sive pop­ulists are not like­ly to have a can­di­date to ral­ly around. It’s hard to see DFA and MoveOn​.org activists turn­ing out for out­go­ing Mary­land Gov. Mar­tin O’Malley or for­mer Sen­a­tor Jim Webb, who have both expressed inter­est in running.

The ques­tion now, is who will step for­ward as the alter­na­tive to the prag­mat­ic Hillary Clin­ton, who has already start­ed lay­ing the ground­work for her 2016 cam­paign.

Sanders spent the remain­der of the call estab­lish­ing his pro­gres­sive vision for the coun­try, both woo­ing and being wooed by his audi­ence in equal measure.

Sanders drew a sharp con­trast between him­self and Oba­ma on the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship (TPP). Reit­er­at­ing his oppo­si­tion to all free trade deals, includ­ing NAF­TA, CAF­TA and per­ma­nent nor­mal trade rela­tions with Chi­na, which Sanders says has cost Amer­i­ca 3 mil­lion jobs. He described TPP, a free trade deal that was nego­ti­at­ed large­ly in secret, ​“a los­ing propo­si­tion for Amer­i­can workers.”

Though TPP’s pas­sage seems like­ly with Repub­li­cans in con­trol of the Sen­ate, Sanders expressed some opti­mism that an unlike­ly coali­tion between Democ­rats and Tea Par­ty Repub­li­cans would be enough to kill the agree­ment. ​“We’re going to real­ly need some coali­tion pol­i­tics, bring­ing togeth­er some very, very strange bed­fel­lows,” he said.

The most sig­nif­i­cant oth­er mea­sure he hopes to accom­plish in the next year is extend­ing Fair Labor Stan­dards Act (FLSA) pro­tec­tions to ​“super­vi­so­ry” work­ers. Under cur­rent law, work­ers in a super­vi­so­ry role who make over $23,600 per year are not enti­tled to receive over­time pay. The Pres­i­dent recent­ly direct­ed Labor Sec­re­tary Thomas Perez to study how to extend the FLSA to cov­er these work­ers via exec­u­tive action as he sim­i­lar­ly ordered for white col­lar work­ers last year.

“My guess is that with­in a cou­ple of months, you will hear a chang­ing in the Labor Stan­dards Act that will enable a whole lot of folks to get time and a half who today do not,” Sanders said.

Through­out the call, Sanders appealed to the work­ing-class vot­ers who feel that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has left them behind: ​“There are mil­lions of peo­ple out there who feel that Democ­rats have not been strong enough in stand­ing up for the work­ing class, the mid­dle class of this coun­try and tak­ing on big mon­ey interests.”

Sanders said he would take a dif­fer­ent approach to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s strat­e­gy of try­ing to beat Repub­li­cans in the big mon­ey game. Rather than view grass­roots activism as a way to get elect­ed, Sanders wants to make it the norm in pro­gres­sive politics.

“It is not only absolute­ly imper­a­tive that we mobi­lize huge num­bers of peo­ple for an elec­tion, but that those peo­ple stay mobi­lized after the elec­tion,” Sanders said. ​“Because if there is a mis­take that Pres­i­dent Oba­ma has made, I think he has not been strong in main­tain­ing the ties with the grass­roots that helped elect him president.”

As pres­i­dent, Sanders told New York that he would orga­nize mas­sive march­es on Wash­ing­ton to demon­strate to mem­bers of Con­gress who real­ly hold pow­er in gov­ern­ment: “[W]hen these con­gress­men come by the White House and they’re behold­en to the Koch broth­ers, the super-PACs, or the oil com­pa­nies, I will say, ​‘Do what you want, but first do one thing for me: Look out the window.’ ”

Sanders plans to return to Iowa next month to hold a series of town hall meet­ings and deliv­er speech­es for pro­gres­sive groups.

Whether he decides to run or not, Sanders remains the fore­most pro­gres­sive cham­pi­on of the pow­er that indi­vid­ual cit­i­zens could have over gov­ern­ment: ​“Some­times peo­ple think, ​‘Well I made a phone call, I signed a peti­tion, it doesn’t real­ly mat­ter.’ Well guess what? It real­ly does matter.”