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Clinton, Sanders attend Ohio Dem Party fundraiser
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders outlined policy positions and attempted to differentiate their campaigns during stops in Columbus on Sunday night.
They agree on some issues and disagree on others, but each steered clear of vitriol toward the other before an audience of Ohio Democrats.
“We’re both representing ideas,” Clinton said. “The other side is persistent insults that take us nowhere.”
Clinton and Sanders were the featured speakers during the Ohio Democratic Party’s Legacy Dinner. They appeared on stage separately, with Sanders speaking for about seven minutes and Clinton for closer to 30 minutes.
The latter opened with a swipe at the Republican front-runner, calling on voters to “vote [Donald Trump] down.”
“Donald Trump is running a cynical campaign of hate and fear for one reason: to get votes,” she said. “He’s encouraging violence and chaos. He is pitting Americans against each other. You and I know Donald Trump is not who we are.”
Sanders opened his comments calling for a “political revolution.”
“It is the understanding that no president, not Bernie Sanders or anybody else, can do it alone, that we need millions of people to jump into the political process in a way that we have never seen in recent history,” he said. “And the bottom line is, when we stand together, as black and white and Latino and Asian Americans, gay and straight, people born in this country, people coming to this country ... we will have the power to take on the billionaires, and yes, we will have the power to create a government that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.”
Sanders covered a lengthy list of policy proposals – overturning Citizens United, stopping voter suppression, ending “disastrous trade policies,” raising the minimum wage, lowering medical costs and guaranteeing health care coverage for all.
“Together, we are going to end the rigged economy,” Sanders said. “It is not acceptable to me and to the American people that the one-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Maybe, just maybe, the time is ripe to create an economy that works for all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors.”
Clinton focused on the national economy, criticized Gov. John Kasich for signing legislation to defund Planned Parenthood and called for policies that help create jobs.
“The test of this election has to be whether we can actually create good-paying jobs here in America,” she said. “... We not only want them, we will make sure they end up right here in Ohio and the rest of our country.”
More than 3,000 people were on hand Sunday night to hear the two candidates, shortly before both participated in a televised town hall session a few miles away on the campus of Ohio State University.
The Ohio Democratic Party has been careful not to take sides in the Clinton-Sanders matchup, said state party Chairman David Pepper.