Actress and liberal activist Susan Sarandon appeared on the campaign trail in Iowa Wednesday night stumping for Sen. Bernard Sanders, telling the crowd that it’s the issues, not gender, that’s important this campaign season, which is why she refuses to support Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Ms. Sarandon said Mrs. Clinton lost her support after voting for the Iraq War in 2002 as a New York senator.

“The biggest foreign decision that had to be made in terms of foreign policy was whether or not to go into Iraq and go into war, and she failed that test,” she told the Daily Mail.

Mrs. Clinton went on to be secretary of state, “but what has she done that we’re bragging about? How has she led?” Ms. Sarandon asked.

The 69-year-old actress got teary as she introduced Mr. Sanders Wednesday in front of an overflow crowd of 1100 people during a town hall in Music Man Square in Mason City, Iowa.

“I’ve come here because for me gender is not what’s important. Issues are what’s important,” Ms. Sarandon told the crowd. “I want a candidate who has the courage to stand and do the right thing when it was not popular.

“It’s one thing to be for gay rights and gay marriage once everybody else is for it. That’s not difficult,” she said, referring to Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Sarandon later explained to the Daily Mail that Mr. Sanders is “untainted.”

“If you want to know how people are going to react and where they really stand, you have to look at who’s giving them their money,” she said. “The fact that he has managed to consistently be on the right side of every issue the correct side of every issue that reflects my concerns, and he has done it without being connected to Wall Street, big pharm, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs.

“When you have the other candidate taking money from Goldman Sachs, speaking to Goldman Sachs, getting a lot of money from Monsanto, I think it’s really naive to believe that that’s not going to have some kind of influence over policy,” she said of Mrs. Clinton.

Asked to expand on her gay marriage comments at the rally, Ms. Sarandon said, “There’s a number of issues where [Mrs. Clinton] has come around but she very clearly equivocated or was not there in the beginning.

“She was not, and that’s a matter of record, and yes, she has come around,” she said, “but my point is, it’s great that she came around, but wouldn’t it be great to be a leader instead of a follower, especially if you’re going to hold the highest office in the land?”

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