Obama contrasts Clinton's pragmatism with Sanders' idealism

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is casting the Democratic primary to replace him as a contest between Hillary Clinton's pragmatism and experience versus Bernie Sanders' idealism and liberalism.

White House officials have said Obama will not endorse in the primary, which pits his 2008 primary opponent and former secretary of state against a liberal independent senator from Vermont who many Democrats feel embodies the upstart, idealistic nature of Obama's own campaign.

Obama said there was no doubt Sanders had tapped into a "running thread" in Democratic politics that questions why people should be scared to talk bluntly about inequality and "be full-throated in our progressivism."

In the interview, Obama reflected on his own victory in Iowa eight years ago as the most satisfying of his political career, praising the process as a true expression of the way American democracy is supposed to work.