The Vermont senator has carefully avoided negativity, but on Tuesday he offered a slew of issues upon which he differed from his main Democratic rival

Bernie Sanders has scrupulously avoided throwing punches at political rivals during a career that has lasted close to half a century. The independent Vermont senator is not about to take off his gloves, even in the midst of a race for the Democratic nomination for president.



But on Tuesday, with the frontrunner for the Democratic 2016 ticket, Hillary Clinton, walking the corridors of the Capitol building, Sanders did attempt a few delicate jabs.

He emerged from a lunch of Democratic senators (also attended by Clinton) to give reporters a slew of issues upon which he said he differed from the former secretary of state. It was not a short list, and included issues as varied as trade, war, surveillance, climate change and the minimum wage.

It was hardly hand-to-hand political combat, but Sanders, who famously ducks requests from reporters to put the boot into rivals, looked a little reluctant.

“I don’t like negative campaigns – I’ve never run a negative ad in my life,” Sanders told reporters at the start of his remarks.

He ended up concluding like this: “I’ve known the secretary for 25 years. I knew her as first lady, obviously I knew her when we were together here in the Senate. I like her, I respect her, I hope we can run a campaign where we can express the differences of opinion that we have do it in a way that is straightforward.”

Couched between those two caveats, Sanders provided what may be the most comprehensive list he has outlined so far of areas where he said that he and Clinton differ. And, despite his insistence that there are “issues where we come from the same place”, Sanders talked only of policy areas where the pair disagree.

“I happen to believe that the trade agreements that have been passed here over the last three decades, Nafta, Cafta, the Chinese trade agreement, the TPP, have been disastrous for American workers, and have led to the loss of American jobs,” he said. “Secretary Clinton, I believe, has a different view on that issue.”

Clinton has repeatedly declined to say if she supports Obama’s historic 12-nation trade pact with Asia.



“I strongly opposed the war in Iraq,” Sanders said, “I voted against the so-called USA Patriot Act.”



Sanders chose not to say, explicitly, that Clinton, as a New York senator, supported both.

On climate change, Sanders repeated his opposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which he said would be “transporting or excavating some of the dirtiest fuel on this planet”, before adding: “I think Secretary Clinton has not been clear on that issue.”

Sanders also mentioned his support for greater regulation of Wall Street, “ideas that Secretary Clinton does not agree with”, as well as increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and trillion-dollar investments in infrastructure, issues “the secretary has not been quite so clear on”.

“Lastly,” he said, “I believe that if we’re gonna rebuild the American middle class we need to make public colleges and universities tuition free and pay for it through a transaction tax on Wall Street speculators. The secretary’s position, I think, is unclear on that.”

But that, it turned out, was not his last point after all. When a reporter asked if he had spoken with Clinton during her visit, he underscored his desire for a clean fight.

“It is not necessary for people to attack each other, or dislike each other, just because they’re running for office,” Sanders said.