Hillary Clinton Refuses To Take The Media’s Bait And Criticize Bernie Sanders’ Positions

CNN’s Jake Tapper tried to get Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to criticize the policies of Bernie Sanders as unrealistic, but Clinton defended Sanders’ perspective and ambitious vision.
Transcript via CNN State of the Union:
TAPPER: Turning to the debate, you said at the debate that you’re a progressive, but you’re a progressive that likes to get things done. Sanders has plans that I think might be fairly called more ambitious

than yours, in terms of expanding Medicare for everybody, basically single-payer health care, free college tuition, an across-the-board expansion of Social Security benefits.
Do you think he’s being unrealistic when he makes these proposals, in terms of what can actually get passed through Congress?
CLINTON: Look, I have the highest regard for Senator Sanders. And I think he is raising issues that the electorate, not just Democrats, everybody needs to be thinking about.
And he has put forward his plans with passionate intensity. And I have put forth mine. And just think of the difference between us and the Republicans, who have put forth nothing but the same old out-of- touch, out-of-date policies.
TAPPER: But why are his plans more ambitious? Is it…
CLINTON: Well, his — he has a very ambitious and expansive view about what he thinks should be done with respect to free college and other of the policies that we both are trying to tackle.
I believe that my approach, for example, on college, I call it the New College Compact, because I think everybody should have some skin in the game, including students, who I say should work for part of their education. Maybe it’s because I did and my husband did, but I think it’s something that you want young people to feel really committed to.
It’s a difference in approach. We will have an opportunity, as these debates go forward, to really dig down. And I’m hoping that whatever network hosts them, whoever the moderator happens to be, that they will really ask us to explain and contrast.
But it’s a policy difference. I mean, you could see on that stage in Las Vegas how we are maybe approaching these problems with different solutions, but we’re both seeing the pressures that American families are under and the challenges that they’re facing that we want to try to address.
And the differences between us is nothing like the differences we all have with the Republicans. And I want the American people to be part of the debate, and to hear Senator Sanders’ perspective and what he’s proposing, to hear mine, to make up their mind, and then to remember that we’re not peddling the same old failed policies of trickle-down economics and let the corporations do what they want and cut taxes on the wealthy, which is the answer to everything that the Republicans put forth.
Clinton’s answer to Tapper’s question was a great explanation of how the two candidates differ. Bernie Sanders is looking to overhaul the whole system while Hillary Clinton is more of a traditional incrementalist.
If was nice to see former Sec. Clinton not take the media’s bait and call Sanders’s positions unrealistic. Reporters have learned that they are not going to get Clinton and Sanders to personally criticize each other, so their tactics have shifted to trying to get the candidates to use loaded terms to criticize each other’s policies.
Democrats are going to stay unified and vote based on the positions of the candidates and on the issues. Clinton and Sanders have a good thing going in this campaign. Both candidates want to talk about policy, and media hates it, but the Democratic Party is stronger when the top two candidates for the nomination stick to substance.
The record ratings for Democratic debate showed that voters aren’t bored by policy. They want their candidates to discuss the issues, and Hillary Clinton won’t be suckered into anything could be twisted into a personal attack on Sen. Sanders by the media.