The two candidates are not remotely similar except through the lens of the US media as Hilary has intentionally and strategically pulled left to appear less of a centrist than she actually is.
It's funny how she used to always be accused of intentionally and strategically pulling to the center to appear less like the leftist she actually is.
Anyway, you can look at her voting record and platform and see that the truth is that she is to the left of the median Democratic voter.
Bernie is also playing politics, though, trying to appear more moderate in the beginning here as to not alienate or get the media attacking him further, ie military spending issue.
In the primary, candidates have two challenges--differentiate themselves from the other candidates and appeal to the base without making yourself vulnerable to being successfully labeled an extremist in the general if you win. I don't fault anyone for playing the game. If you believe that a candidate can do good in office, they have to win and it's not about changing actual positions as much as just crafting an appealing message around your set of policy preferences.
But nobody with a brain and capacity to think for themselves is buying it as legitimate. Hilary has a distinct record of being a typical ambiguous, self-interested, political hack. Sanders has been the definition of consistency fighting against power and tackling very difficult issues at the forefront, not when it is convenient.
The term "hack" is thrown out so much that I'm not sure people understand what it means. A candidate can have hacks working for him, but he can't be a hack himself (except in the context of campaigning for another candidate). Both candidates have a record of being liberals, which is why they're both running for the Democratic nomination. They have some different ideas about things and are mostly pretty similar. The idea that one is an angel and the other is the devil just comes from people getting caught up in campaign fever (and, jeez, it's early for that kind of stuff). Sanders will end up endorsing Clinton, which he wouldn't do if everything you say is right (that they are so vastly different and Sanders is just a decent guy--I think one of those is true, but they can't both be true if he endorses her).
The two are on opposite ends of the spectrum with major issues like war, domestic surveillance, Wall Street, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
That is manifestly not true. For one thing, they both oppose the TPP (IMO, both have offered poor reasons for that opposition).
For another, look at Wall Street (I'm assuming you're talking about financial regs when you say they are on opposite ends of the spectrum with regard to Wall Street). They both support the major regulatory reforms in Dodd-Frank, and they both support going beyond that. They have different ideas about what additional reforms should be, but there's no way an honest person looking rationally at the issue could conclude that they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. If you rated it 1-10 with the right being 10 and the left 1, Sanders is probably a 2 and Clinton's a 3. Note that for the most part, Wall Street wants to repeal the reforms that we've already gotten and the GOP supports that effort.
Same with foreign policy. Sanders is a little more liberal than Clinton there but both are way more liberal than the GOP and there's no way you can justify saying that they're on opposite ends of the spectrum.
