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Dean: Sanders Was a Nastier Campaigner Than We Thought

April 26, 2016

Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign surrogate, said that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) has run a nastier campaign than was expected and that he expects most of Sanders' supporters to get on board with Clinton before the general election.

While speaking about the tone of Sanders' campaign with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC on Tuesday, Dean also said that he expects Sanders' supporters to back Clinton, even without many concessions to Sanders.

"But very briefly, she (Clinton) was hardly conciliatory last night with Rachel Maddow when asked about whether she will drop some of his platform issues. She said, ‘I'm winning, I got 2.7 million more votes than he did.’ You know, why should she concede to him?" Mitchell said.

"Well, look, nobody is going to be conciliatory at this stage of the game. They've run what turned out to be a much nastier campaign than I thought most of us would," Dean said. "I thought your remarks in the earlier segment about how nasty it really was under the surface was pretty bad."

"I had to deal with a bunch of older women who supported John McCain at the end over Hillary, I mean, that's gonna happen, I mean over Obama. That's gonna happen," Dean said. "They're gonna be some people who do that. Hopefully, it's going to be mostly headline grabbers and not really substantial voters and I don't think it will be."

"I believe that all but the hardest-core 10 percent of Bernie Sanders voters will end up voting for Hillary because it's the right thing to do for the country and its the right thing for them to do to advance their own agenda as well. The truth is, most revolutions in this country are incremental and they don't happen overnight--that's what the penalty of democracy is, you don't get your changes overnight."