Sanders argues a bold agenda will ensure the American people don’t get ‘crumbs’

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders addresses a campaign rally in Rochester, Minn., on Saturday after being defeated by Hillary Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary earlier in the evening. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Bernie Sanders made a fresh attempt Sunday to defend the scope of his presidential agenda, telling a boisterous crowd in this Super Tuesday state that campaigns should be about big ideas.

“I believe that if you start your campaign and run on a platform calling for a full loaf, at worst you’re gonna get a half loaf,” the senator from Vermont said. “If you start your campaign talking about a need for a half loaf, you’re going to get crumbs. And the American people today do not want, do not need crumbs. They need the whole loaf.”

Hillary Clinton has argued that she is running on a progressive agenda that is achievable while Sanders has offered pie-in-the-sky programs with no chance of making it through Congress, including a single-payer health-care system and free tuition at public colleges and universities.

Advisers to Sanders have suggested that Clinton’s effectiveness in making that argument was one reason for her resounding victory in South Carolina’s Democratic primary, which she won 73.5 percent to 26 percent.

Sanders’s appearance here at Colorado State University came amid a two-day stretch in which he is scheduled to touch down in all five of the primary and caucus states his campaign is targeting on Tuesday. Delegates will be up for grabs in 11 states that day for the Democrats.

Sanders’s crowd here was estimated at 6,500 people. Earlier Sunday, he campaigned in Oklahoma City.