Disclosure: I am a Hillary supporter who will vote for Bernie if he is nominated.
There is a general perspective among political insiders that Bernie Sanders would get annihilated in a general election because the “vetting” process that would be applied by Republicans would dramatically change the public’s view of him as a potential president. This is probably at the core of much of the Super Delegate resistance to Bernie as a presidential nominee. Perhaps the perspective is wrong, but I am curious how the Senator would answer the following questions.
Question 1. Senator Sanders, you sought to avoid service in the Vietnam war by saying you were a pacifist, i.e. that you would be unwilling to kill on behalf of your country. The most important role of the President as to serve as Commander In Chief of the US Armed Forces. In that role you might be asking American soldiers to kill on behalf of their country. How can you ask American soldiers to do what you explicitly said you were unwilling to do?
Question 2. Senator Sanders, you say that you are no longer a pacifist. Throughout the Democratic primary campaign you consistently implied that Secretary Clinton was untrustworthy because she had changed positions on a number of issues. Changing from being a pacifist to not being a pacifist feels like a change that must have involved a great deal of soul searching. How do we know that the change in your position reflects a real change in belief and not a conversion of political convenience, and therefore how can we fully trust you to be willing to defend the United States against the terrorist threats that the nation is likely to continue to face?
My strong sense is that no more than 10-15% of the US electorate currently knows that Bernie claimed to be a pacifist and that this would be disqualifying for a material portion of the electorate. What I do know for certain is that this fact would be front and center of a Republican Campaign against the Senator.
