Sanders says his 2016 message is 'resonating' everywhere

Sen. Bernie Sanders vowed on Sunday to campaign in conservative states and increase voter turnout, answering charges that he’s too liberal to win a general election or to deliver on his campaign promises if he did.

“I will be able to deliver in Washington; I will be able to win the election,” Sanders said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” pledging to campaign in Alabama, Mississippi and other red states. “The message that we have is resonating.”


But, he said, “electing Bernie Sanders as president” is not enough. “We need a mass grassroots movement in this country.”

The Vermont independent, who’s seeking the Democratic nomination for president, also sought to contrast himself with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton ahead of a speech Monday in which she is expected to lay out a populist economic vision.

“I voted against the war in Iraq,” Sanders said. The former secretary of state, he noted, “voted for the war.” He also said he’s worked to kill the Keystone XL pipeline, while Clinton’s view on the issue “hasn’t been clear.” And he said he believes that if a “bank is too big to fail, it’s too big to exist.”

“Money cannot be the God of life,” he added.