So why is he running as a conservative? Surely, any grand scheme he has would work even better if he ran as his liberal self.
Two reasons. 1) Because he cannot defeat Hillary for the democRAT nomination and 2) because there are so many disillusioned "conservatives" who are just gullible enough to throw their support to a candidate who has done nothing more than be critical of the GOP and the leftist media. When you think about it, that is all he has done.
But I would agree, he is by far liberal enough to run as a democRAT.