ANAHEIM – Bernie Sanders didn’t cast his gaze far Tuesday when he launched into his attack on corporate greed, targeting the Walt Disney Co. during an Anaheim Convention Center rally filled with 1,500 enthusiastic supporters.

“People are asking is it right that at Disneyland you have a CEO making $46 million while they’re paying their workers starvation wages,” he said after asking how many in the crowd worked for Disney and then how many were making a living wage. Many responded “Yes” to the first question and “No” to the second.

It was his second Orange County rally in three days – and one of nine Southern California events within a week – as he makes a Hail Mary-campaign bid to catch Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Both Sanders and his backers seemed oblivious to the odds.

“It’s better that we come (to the rally) than don’t do anything at all,” said Abby Marin, a Santiago Canyon College student from Garden Grove. Like several attendees interviewed by the Register, she sounded unprepared to answer what she would do if Clinton was the nominee. “Not Trump,” she said, finally.

At the center of Sanders’ call for a political revolution – and an alternative to what he called the big-money special interests behind both Clinton and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump – is his conviction that the political system as well as the nation’s economy are “rigged” against the working person, in favor of the most wealthy.

So it wasn’t surprising that he attacked Disney, the county’s biggest employer with 29,000 workers.

ATTACKING DISNEY

“We are a nation of people where a lot of people are in trouble,” he said, then focused on Disneyland employees.

“Many of them are forced to live in hotels because they can’t afford a home,” he said. He contrasted that with CEO Bob Iger’s pay and Disney’s record profits.

The Wall Street Journal estimated Iger’s total compensation at $46.5 million in 2014 and $45 million in 2015. Disney’s latest earnings report said the company’s parks and resorts division, which includes Disneyland Resort, set a record with $3.9 billion in revenue in the second quarter of the current fiscal year, a 4-percent increase year-over-year.

Sanders also claimed that Disney used H1B visas to hire cheap foreign labor in Florida.

The Disney attacks were embraced by many in the crowd

Lifelong Anaheim resident Jade Gonzalez, 23, said she has friends and family members who work for Disney — and she thought Sanders was spot on.

“We as customers pay all this money, but the workers don’t get paid that much,” she said, and pointed to the Sanders comments as an example of how he’s willing to take on interests that are others do not.

Sandra Romero, an 18-year-old Anaheim resident, said that Disney was able to “control Anaheim and the City Council” and “influence the appearance of the city. But she also noted the upside of theme park.

“We’ll always have tourism here because of Disney,” she said. “So it’s a steady job source.”

Some of her neighbors have worked at Disneyland for years, Romero added, and they seem “happy.”

An emailed response from Disney spokeswoman Suzi Brown said, “Mr. Sanders clearly doesn’t have his facts right.”

However, Brown did not dispute the specific attacks by Sanders. Instead, she said that the Disneyland Resort generated more than $5.7 billion annually to the local economy and its track record in bringing more and more jobs to the area would continue.

‘BERNIE OR BUST’

Sanders is facing an uphill battle not only nationwide, where Clinton only needs to hold on to her current superdelegates and win 90 more pledged delegates to secure the nomination, but also in California.

One-on-one interview with Bernie Sanders:

Sanders has said that winning California, which has more pledged delegates than any other state and holds its primary June 7, is critical to convincing superdelegates to change allegiances.

But an ABC7-Southern California News Group poll out Monday showed likely Democratic primary voters favored Clinton over Sanders, 57 percent to 39 percent.

Sanders supporters at Tuesday’s rally offered mixed predictions on how they’ll vote if Clinton wins the nomination.

“It would be so difficult,” said Barbara Smith, 64, who was in town from the Bay Area to help take care of a new granddaughter. “But I wouldn’t want to stay home.”

A few people expressed hesitation to vote for Clinton — even if not doing so could help Trump.

But Sandra Romero, 18, and Jessica Peralta, 17, both of Anaheim, disagreed with that strategy.

“We would have to vote for Hillary,” Romero said. “She’s a better candidate than Trump.”

Peralta, who turns 18 after the November general election and can’t vote, said of the so-called “Bernie or bust movement”: “That’s not a very smart strategy. If they don’t vote, how do you think they can change anything.”

Part of Sanders pitch, which he reiterated at the Anaheim rally, is that polls show him outperforming Clinton in general election matchups against Donald Trump, particularly in battleground states.

RealClearPolitics.com’s aggregation of the most recent major national polls show Clinton and Trump deadlocked at 43 percent in a head-to-head matchup, while Sanders leads Trump 50 percent to 40 percent.

Jim Radcliffe and Joseph Pimentel contributed to this story.

Contact the writer: mwisckol@ocregister.com