In San Jose, Sanders spells out campaign differences with Clinton

Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Wednesday, May 18, 2016 in Vallejo, Calif. Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Wednesday, May 18, 2016 in Vallejo, Calif. Photo: Chris Preovolos Photo: Chris Preovolos Image 1 of / 72 Caption Close In San Jose, Sanders spells out campaign differences with Clinton 1 / 72 Back to Gallery

Bernie Sanders laughed heartily Wednesday afternoon before taking the stage at his rally in San Jose, noting the differences in his California campaign activities compared with his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton.

Sanders scheduled two Bay Area rallies Wednesday — he also had a rally in Vallejo Wednesday evening and in between the two made an unannounced stop to join a boisterous crowd of hotel and restaurant employees in San Francisco demanding the right to unionize.

Clinton or her husband, former President Bill Clinton, will headline four high-dollar fundraisers in the Bay Area next week. All the events are private and cost from $250 to $27,000 a ticket.

“Ha, ha, ha! That says everything about the difference,” Sanders told The Chronicle Wednesday. “Our goal — and I don’t know if we’ll achieve it — is to talk to 200,000 people in California in rallies like this until June 7” — the date of the California primary election.

“If you want a candidate who is out working and speaking with people rather than hanging out raising money from millionaires, I think the choice is pretty clear,” the Vermont senator said.

While fundraising stops will be part of the Clintons’ next trip to the state, they will also be making several public appearances — as they have also done during recent stops. Hillary Clinton did make public appearances at rallies in Oakland and East Los Angeles during a campaign swing earlier this month. And Bill Clinton headlined public events in San Diego and Los Angeles earlier this month, too. Bill Clinton is expected to be at a rally in San Diego on Saturday when he swings through California for several days starting this weekend, with more public events expected to be on his schedule. Hillary Clinton is also expected to do multiple public events on her next trip through California next week.

Hillary for California campaign director Buffy Wicks responded that both Clintons “ have held events across the state this month where they’ve talked to many Californians about the issues on their minds and they look forward to returning this weekend and next week.”

A practical purpose

For the Sanders campaign, Wednesday’s rallies served a practical purpose. Before the candidate appeared, supporter Wrenn Bunker Koesters urged the crowd from the stage to text the word “volunteer” to a campaign number.

That inspired Esdras Ortega to text his desire to volunteer. The rally was the first political event the 20-year-old De Anza College student had ever attended.

“I just wanted to come here, hear what he said and pick up a vibe on his speeches and see what people were cheering for and getting excited about,” Ortega said. “This gets me psyched up to volunteer.”

It has paid similar dividends nationally. Of people who have attended Sanders’ campaign rallies or town meetings, 67 percent have volunteered and 40 percent of them donated money, Sanders campaign digital director Kenneth Pennington said Wednesday.

The public perception is palpable, too, analysts say.

“When you raise money like that, you are more accountable to the public at large rather than a small group of donors,” said Daniel G. Newman, co-founder of Maplight, a nonpartisan organization that analyzes the role of money in politics. Newman pointed out that both Clinton and Sanders have promised to do all they could to overturn Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that paved the way for unlimited campaign contributions.

During Wednesday’s rally before 5,500 people at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose, Sanders — often in a hoarse voice — stuck to his stump speech, a critique of how the wealthy have a death grip on America’s political and economic systems. He didn’t attack Clinton directly and saved some of his most pointed jabs for Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

‘That will not happen’

“I know that there are many people who are concerned that Donald Trump may become president of the United States. That will not happen,” Sanders said, pointing to how he leads Trump in many national polls. “More important, I believe the American people will reject the basic tenets of what Donald Trump stands for.”

Sanders pointed to Nevada casino magnate Sheldon Adelson saying last week he would endorse Trump.

“When you have billionaires supporting billionaires, that’s oligarchy,” the candidate said.

Sanders steered into a California topic when he addressed a matter likely to be before state voters this fall: legalizing cannabis for adult recreational use.

“If I lived in California I would vote yes to legalize marijuana,” Sanders said at the rally, drawing huge cheers.

After he left San Jose, Sanders appeared about 4:30 p.m. in the plaza at 101 California near the Le Meridien Hotel to support workers trying to organize there and spoke for about five minutes to a crowd of about 500 people.

This time he veered in a very San Francisco issue: homelessness.

“Just been in San Francisco for a few hours, and it’s stunning to see people sleeping out in the street,” he said.

Following his speech, he waded into the crowd to shake hands with supporters before heading to the evening rally in Vallejo.

At Vallejo’s Waterfront Park, Sanders continued hammering on the nation’s wealth inequality while speaking for an hour before a crowd organizers estimated at 5,000 people. And he continued to be boundlessly optimistic about his chances, saying that after winning the Oregon primary Tuesday, “I think we’re going to sweep the West Coast.”

Like he did in San Jose, Sanders barely mentioned Clinton and focused his attacks on Trump as a billionaire who, if elected, would perpetuate an economic system that’s rigged against middle- and low-income Americans.

In an interview before his San Jose speech, Sanders reacted strongly to criticism of events at the Nevada Democratic Convention over the weekend. His supporters said party organizers had changed the rules of the convention to block them and give an advantage to Clinton. They reacted by causing disruption and threatening the state party chairwoman.

But Sanders said concerns about “violence” were overblown and pointed out that “it was a room filled with police officers and nobody was arrested.”

Dems criticize campaign

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called the reaction by the Sanders campaign to the Nevada incident “anything but acceptable,” and California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who was in Nevada, complained of being booed and said she had been concerned for her safety. Other party leaders worried it could be a preview of chaos at the national convention in July in Philadelphia should Sanders not win the nomination.

“What I am concerned about is that people in the Democratic Party even raise that as a spectacle. Why would you do that?” Sanders told The Chronicle Wednesday. “When we have the most grassroots campaign seen in a very long time — with no violence — and then people are suggesting that we will bring violence to the convention in Philadelphia. That’s absurd. That’s a political tactic.”

Without mentioning Wasserman Schultz or Boxer by name, Sanders said, “Then you have people comparing us to Donald Trump? That’s bad politics. What we are trying to do is bring people together. That some people booed and yelled and maybe acted inappropriately, we condemn that. But people do have the right to boo.”

Sanders also pressed for Clinton to fulfill her promise to debate in California. Fox News extended an invitation Wednesday to both campaigns to debate in California and the Sanders campaign noted that The Chronicle has offered to co-host a debate.

While the odds remain long for Sanders to capture the Democratic nomination, Matthew Finkelstein, a Vallejo resident wearing a blue Bernie-themed yarmulke to the rally in his city, remained hopeful.

“In politics, anything can happen. Sometimes a moment comes together perfectly and a star goes supernova,” Finkelstein said.”Whether or not Bernie wins this contest or he doesn’t, this movement is coming.”

Chronicle staff writers Steve Rubenstein and Jenna Lyons contributed to this report.