Here’s What Bernie Sanders Says Hillary Clinton Must Do If She Wants To Become The Democratic Nominee, And It’s Not Easy
Bernie Sanders had a fair bit of advice to give to Hillary Clinton when he appeared on ABC’s This Week on Sunday with George Stephanopoulos, including telling her what to do if she wants to actually win the Democratic nomination by a large vote.
Answering questions on why he thinks a chunk of his supporters would prefer voting for the Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump in the general election if Clinton was chosen as the Democratic Party nominee, Sanders said that it is the duty of each candidate to reach out to the American public, and pointed to Clinton’s indifferent attitude to a number of progressive agendas as the possible reason that could dent her presidential campaign in a big way.
“I have every confidence that if Hillary Clinton is prepared to stand up to the greed of corporate America and Wall Street; is prepared to be really strong on the issue of climate change; support, as I do, a tax on carbon; is prepared to say that the United States of America should join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all people, paid family and medical leave; is prepared to say that the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality today in America, where almost all new income and wealth is going to the top one percent. If she is strong on those issues, yeah, I think she will win and win by a large vote.”
“But if she is not, she’s going to have her problems.”
.@BernieSanders: I don't want to see the American people voting for the lesser of two evils. More ahead on #ThisWeekhttps://t.co/ZA8omOslBN
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 22, 2016
In effect, Sanders pointed out the stark differences between his position on issues and Clinton’s — a major reason that a sizable chunk of the Vermont senator’s supporters are unwilling to vote for Hillary Clinton in the event of her clinching the Democratic nomination.
Moreover, Bernie Sanders said that he would not want to see a general election where the American people are “forced to choose the lesser evil,” one of the allegations that have been hurled at Clinton owing to her high unfavorable ratings in polls. According to a string of national polls, a potential Clinton vs. Trump general election match-up will see voters vote more on the basis of negatives, rather than voting for their preferred candidate.
As The Washington Post noted in a recent report, 2016 is shaping up as a year which could potentially see an “election of negatives” with both probable candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, suffering the worst favorable ratings in the history of American presidential races.
The Vermont senator also attacked Hillary Clinton for having “jumped the gun” by announcing that she had effectively won the nomination during a recent interview, arguing that he still had a viable path to the nomination.
Although Bernie Sanders maintained that his fight against Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination remains a “very uphill climb,” he refused to give up, arguing that his campaign has fought overwhelming odds since its inception. In the process, Sanders appeared to make his case to the 400-odd superdelegates who pledged their support to Clinton before anybody else had entered the presidential race.
Sanders insisted that if he won the remaining contests with heavy margins, he could topple Clinton’s total of pledged delegates, which, in turn, could pave his way towards convincing the superdelegates to switch to his side during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
You can watch Bernie Sanders’ entire interview below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_q9aJgOg4M&feature=youtu.be
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
