Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will campaign together Tuesday in New Hampshire, where the Vermont senator is expected to endorse her.
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The platform as it stands calls for a two-state solution; allies of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonExplaining Snowden, Petraeus, Manning, and Clinton GOP donors increasingly concerned about Trump: report Mexico’s president defends North American, Pacific trade deals MORE argued that going further could jeopardize future peace talks, according to CNN.
Even after Clinton became the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sanders refused to drop out, maintaining his leverage – the possibility of a chaotic, contested convention – to try to force policy concessions in the platform that would allow him to leave a lasting stamp on the party and force Clinton leftward one more time, especially on health care and economic issues like the minimum wage.
But Bernie Sanders’ supporters – as well as dozens of young people in the crowd in an Orlando hotel ballroom for the Democratic National Committee’s platform drafting committee’s two-day meeting – said the language they’d proposed simply repeated a position Clinton herself has taken in the past.
Last week, Clinton released an updated version of her plan addressing college affordability, which her staff said was the result of meeting and discussing the issue with Sanders last month.
Clinton has been open to his efforts, and would benefit from an endorsement by her Democratic challenger.
The Democratic Party is on track to ratify what is arguably its most progressive policy agenda in modern history, after the committee tasked with writing the platform document finished its final round of amendments and votes overnight.
Ben Jealous, a Sanders backer and former NAACP president presented the criminal justice reform amendment with Ben Crump, the lawyer for Trayvon Martin’s family and Clinton backer.
The Sanders campaign’s primary amendment, written by surrogate Jim Hightower, would have prevented the trade deal from ever coming to a vote in Congress. Hightower called the TPP a “little shop of corporate horrors”.
“We have made enormous strides”, Sanders said in a statement Sunday.
Clinton saw the power of this kind of Kumbaya moment eight years ago, playing the gracious loser when she endorsed then-candidate Barack Obama at their first rally together next to an elementary school in Unity. “These are standards all Democrats believe should be applied to all trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership”, the amendment said.
The Sanders camp scored a victory late Friday, when the committee embraced language calling for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Sanders says he’s focused on beating Republican Donald Trump. Sanders’ reluctance to endorse Clinton drew catcalls from Democratic lawmakers during a private meeting this week. Clinton has adopted some of Sanders’ more progressive stances – with a few tweaks.
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Sanders, in the call, made no mention of the trade deal fight, instead focusing on the positive and saying that his aides had worked with the Clinton campaign on “this extremely important initiative” and congratulating her for “an important step forward”.
