Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said Monday that she does not see any major policy differences between Clinton and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).
"Are there severe differences between Hillary and Bernie?" MSNBC host Joe Scarborough asked.
"I don't really see that on the policy side," Klobuchar said. "They have obviously had different experiences."
"She made it clear, I believe—having known Bernie, we came into the Senate together—that he is speaking from the heart," Klobuchar said.
The comparison is awkward for Clinton, who must win a broad national coalition if she wants to be elected. Sanders is an avowed socialist who rails against the proliferation of underarm deodorant options and honeymooned in the Soviet Union; he spent his tenure as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, turning city hall into a stronghold of "resistance to Reagan’s anti-communist policies," according to Politico; he has spent 24 years in Congress railing against the free enterprise system, millionaires, and billionaires.
Clinton—who is a millionaire with a symbiotic relationship with many multinational corporations—has raced to the left in the Democratic primary to head off Sanders’ populist appeal to the base of the party. For example, she has tried to out-Occupy Sanders on financial regulation, although she has been unwilling to embrace unpopular progressive causes like opposing the Keystone XL pipeline.
It is unclear whether this leftward feint will work for Clinton, whose poll numbers continue to decline. Her personal ties to Wall Street, free trade deals, and other avatars of finance could come back to haunt her as she courts a Democratic Party that is more liberal than when she was last elected to office. Sanders also spent far more time in Congress than Clinton, who was elected to the Senate from New York in 2000 and served until 2008 before becoming secretary of state.