Ralph Nader: Sanders won’t be ‘a toadie’ for Clinton

Ralph Nader on Thursday said that Bernie Sanders would not automatically support Hillary Clinton should she win the Democratic presidential nomination.

“She’s going to have to deal with him,” he said on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.” “Let him do what he’s doing.

{mosads}“I know that she has to be very careful not to alienate Bernie Sanders’s supporters,” he added. “That could be very disastrous for her campaign.

“I don’t think he’s going to be a toadie mouthing support daily for Hillary Clinton. I don’t think he can lend his credibility to Hillary’s incredibility.”

Nader said that Sanders could become a powerful force for Democratic control in Congress even if he doesn’t defeat Clinton.

“I think he’s going into civic mobilization,” he said of the independent Vermont senator. “He may well begin to support congressional candidates around the country as his role.

“He can help progressive candidates for the Senate, especially, recover the Senate for the Democrats,” added Nader, who sought the White House five times under three different political party affiliations.

Nader added that Sanders must keep campaigning until the Democratic National Convention in July to advance progressive ideas.

“He’s going to go to the convention, because that’s when he’ll have a stronger hand,” he said. “If he drops out now, he won’t.

“He’ll get more delegates, he’ll make his demands and they’ll give him a prime-time slot for TV for his speech,” Nader added.

“I don’t think the corporate Democrats supporting Hillary are going to give him any of his platform, including full Medicare for all or a New York Stock Exchange transaction tax or anything like that.” 

Clinton leads Sanders by nearly 6 points nationwide, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls.

She also edges him out in delegates, boasting 1,683 pledged votes to Sanders’s 1,362 out of at least 2,382 necessary for avoiding a contested convention this summer, which includes the unbound superdelegates that vote at the convention.