Kevin Hardy

kmhardy@dmreg.com

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday rejected the notion that he lacks foreign policy competence in comparison with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and again leaned heavily on his opposition to the Iraq war as evidence of his superior judgment.

Sanders met with The Des Moines Register's editorial board Thursday afternoon and was asked what he's done to prove his foreign policy mettle.

Bernie Sanders: Iowans will make history in 2016

"How many hours do we have? I don't want to take you into the new year," Sanders joked. "How do I answer that? What was the most important vote cast in the modern history of America on foreign affairs? Yeah, it was Iraq," Sanders said. "What does Hillary Clinton have to do to convince you that she has significant foreign policy judgment? She cast a vote for the war. I cast a vote against the war."

Sanders, who in a November debate in Des Moines called the Iraq war "one of the worst foreign policy blunders in the history of the United States," often paints Clinton's vote to authorize the war as a major distinction between the two leading Democratic candidates. In her 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton said that the vote was based on faulty intelligence information from the George W. Bush administration and that she wanted to end the war, but she stopped short of saying she regretted the vote She has since called the vote a mistake.

On Thursday, Sanders again used the vote to assail Clinton's foreign policy judgment.

As he often does in stump speeches, Sanders told editors to search for his 2002 speech against the impending Iraq invasion. In that speech, Sanders predicted a unilateral invasion would cost untold number of American and Iraqi lives and lead to instability in the region.

"There's no joy in my heart to tell you that much of what I feared turned out to be true," he said. "Who has the foreign policy experience? Who has the judgment? OK."

Sanders said Clinton is a friend of his whom he likes and respects. But he said her experience as secretary of state does not necessarily qualify her to handle American foreign policy.

"Yes, I was not secretary of state for four years. Somebody I know was secretary of state for four years," he said. "But not only did I not vote against the war in Iraq, I helped lead the opposition to the war in Iraq."

Sanders, wrapping up a three-day campaign swing through Iowa, appeared confident about his prospects in the Iowa caucuses. His visit came the same day his campaign announced that he has collectively addressed 34,000 Iowans in recent months. The campaign expects 50,000 people will have seen the Vermont senator in Iowa by caucus night on Feb. 1.

"I've just been blown away by the turnouts we've had," Sanders said.

The latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll in early December put Sanders 9 percentage points behind Clinton. But Sanders believes he is well-positioned to get his so-called "political revolution" off the ground with an Iowa win.

"The people that are coming to our meetings believe that we as a nation can do much, much better than we currently are doing," he said. "And I'm very gratified by the kind of support I'm seeing from nontraditional voters."

When questioned about the type of vice president he would choose, Sanders said it's too early to be thinking about a running mate, but he said he won't be all that interested in whether a potential vice president is a political insider or outsider.

"It’s not an insider or an outsider," he said. "It is somebody who in his or her heart understands what is going on with working families in this country and has a track record of standing up and fighting."

More generally, he offered that his White House will look different from previous administrations by making sure that powerful Wall Street firms play no role.

"Goldman Sachs will have to look elsewhere," he said. "They ain't gonna have a spot in my administration.”

Earlier Thursday: Campaign event in Knoxville