It’s possible that due to his age or unpopularity that Joe Biden will not seek a second term in 2024, and Bernie Sanders wants everyone to know that he hasn’t ruled out a third presidential campaign if there is no incumbent. This, of course, immediately called to mind the nascent 1960 presidential candidacy of Adlai Stevenson, who had been trounced by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.

I found a thesis someone wrote in 1969, the year I was born, about Stevenson’s 1960 adventures. There are a few things that are striking about it.

First, Stevenson had explicitly and repeatedly stated and promised that he would not seek the nomination in 1960, and he felt honor bound to keep that pledge. But he still wanted to be president, and much like Bernie Sanders, he still had the advantage of an army of veterans from his past campaigns who didn’t want the flame to die. For this reason, he encouraged a Draft Stevenson movement, although he kept his own involvement on the down low.

The Draft Stevenson movement was hoping for a brokered convention, and seeing John F. Kennedy as the biggest threat to win the nomination outright, they bankrolled Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey’s campaign. Initially, Stevenson was seen as a two-time failure whose time had lapsed, and Kennedy was pummeling Humphrey in the primaries. But when the Soviets shot down a U2 spy plane and caught the Eisenhower administration in a lie, Cold War tensions got very high and the importance of foreign policy experience came to the fore. This is when many members of the Democratic establishment began to get queasy about going with a young inexperienced Kennedy and began to consider Stevenson as a better man to top the ticket.

And that’s really the main difference between Stevenson and Sanders. Stevenson was a statesman and a fairly mainstream Democrat for the time, and in a time of crisis people naturally looked to him for leadership. Kennedy would eventually win the nomination and the presidency, and make Stevenson his ambassador to the United Nations. In that role, Stevenson would famously, and credibly (unlike Colin Powell), provide proof of Russian-made nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Sanders is a bit older than Biden, so that’s another obvious objection to the idea that he’d make a logical replacement. But no one should doubt that Sanders could put his army in the field again and win a bunch of delegates. The problem is that he isn’t the kind of statesman or trusted Establishment figure the party would look to in a crisis. I’m not sure Sanders knows this or particularly cares if he does. What’s clear is that he decided he wants his name out there. He is encouraging a Draft Bernie movement.

That means it will happen. His surrogates and supporters will organize and ready themselves for battle. And it could be that they’ll get so excited that they’ll push Sanders into the race even if Biden decides to run again.