Sanders: Don't 'anoint' Clinton yet

Sen. Bernie Sanders may or may not run for president. But he’s not comfortable letting Hillary Clinton run away with the 2016 Democratic nomination, either.

“I’m not quite sure that the political process is one in which we anoint people,” the Vermont senator said when asked about Clinton in a Yahoo News interview with Jeff Zeleny published Monday.


When pressed on whether the former secretary of state would make a good president, Sanders said he didn’t know, noting that she hasn’t made her platform known. “What is her agenda? I don’t know. You don’t know. She hasn’t said,” the senator responded.

Some progressives have expressed a desire for a more liberal 2016 alternative than Clinton, who would be the likely front-runner if she chooses to run for the nomination. Some on the left have tried to recruit Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who has delighted many liberals with his emphasis on income inequality.

In the interview Monday, Sanders — an independent who caucuses with the Democrats — said his message of fighting income inequality and protecting Social Security would be a “damn good platform” for president. As he has in the past, the senator said that the U.S. is fast approaching “oligarchy” with its wide disparity between rich and poor.

Sanders, whose views are traditionally left of many Democrats, acknowledged it would be difficult to develop a grass-roots organization to combat the “enormous” amount of money that would be used to campaign against him. He also said he isn’t certain he wants to run.

“I do not wake up every morning with a burning desire to be president of the United States,” he told Zeleny. “And I think anybody who does should be immediately suspected as probably totally crazy,” he said, adding that the presidency is a nearly “impossible” job.

The senator for months has openly flirted with the idea a presidential bid, saying last November that he would run only if he thinks he can win.

During his time in the Senate, Sanders has also championed veterans’ issues as chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. He helped craft the $17 billion deal signed by President Barack Obama to reform the VA.