Socialist Bernie Sanders Got Maximum Funding From Obama and Clinton

Burlington Free Press reports:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said this week he likes both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama but will not get involved in the state’s March 4 Democratic primary contest between the two presidential contenders.

“I see my role in the election as, the day after one of them is nominated, I will spend as much time as I can helping that person get elected,” Sanders said. “Four more years of conservative government would be disastrous for this country.”

Sanders has eschewed involvement in the Democratic presidential selection process in the past with one exception: He endorsed the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential bid and attended a Democratic caucus on Jackson’s behalf.

Sanders also largely operated outside the Democratic sphere during his own nine campaigns for the U.S. House, but that changed when he ran for the Senate in 2006 and received substantial financial help from top Democrats, including both Clinton and Obama.

According to campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission, political action committees controlled by Clinton and Obama both gave the Sanders campaign $10,000, the maximum donation a PAC can give a candidate.

In addition, Obama traveled to Vermont in March 2006 on Sanders’ behalf. While in the state, he spoke at the University of Vermont and then attended a fundraiser for Sanders at the Sheraton Inn and Conference Center in South Burlington.

Obama has the support of the other two members of the state’s congressional delegation, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. Obama’s 2006 fundraiser in South Burlington also benefited Welch’s campaign.

Sanders, in an interview this week, said the fact that he received donations from the two senators, as well as from other Democratic PACs, does not change his policy of staying out of Democratic presidential politics during the primary phase of the campaign.

“A lot of people helped me,” he said of his Senate fundraising effort in 2006.

Sanders said he has gotten to know both Clinton and Obama “quite well” and that the two sit on some of the same Senate committees with him. He said he regards their political views are similar. “They are both moderate to liberal senators,” he said.

Sanders said he eventually hopes to blunt efforts by the Senate’s other independent, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., to get independents to support Republican presidential frontrunner John McCain.

“He’s trying to make the case to independents to support McCain,” Sanders said of Lieberman. “I intent to talk to independents about the Democratic candidate.”

Sanders said he is concerned that the tight race between Obama and Clinton could weaken the chances for a Democratic victory in the general election campaign.

“Yes, I do worry about that,” Sanders said. “I articulated this to Obama the other day and I will if I see Sen. Clinton, that they not engage in attacking the other candidate. Just stick to the issues.”

Obama and Clinton put their money where their mouth is: they both supported a self-described socialist.