Hey, Berniacs: Time to move on to next-best candidate

While I never really was able to “feel the Bern,” I understand the emotions supporters of Bernie Sanders are experiencing at the Democratic National Convention. Nonetheless, I have a message for them:

Bernie lost. Hillary won. Grow up.

Hillary Clinton, who won the Democratic presidential nomination fair and square despite claims that the Democratic National Committee had its thumb on the scale, now is doing her best to woo Bernie’s supporters for the looming battle against Donald Trump.

To that end, she has acceded to many of the requests from Sanders regarding planks in the party platform and has embraced some of his key issues, such as helping young people with their college debt, dumping the TPP trade deal and expanding medical insurance coverage to a broader swath of Americans.

But Bernie’s fans are moping. They are booing Clinton supporters and even challenging former Bernie supporters who now back Hillary, calling them sellouts. A few Bernie supporters say they might even vote for Trump.

As noted, while I never felt the Bern, I do feel their pain – up to a point. You see, as a teenager, one of my first acts of political engagement was to support Eugene McCarthy.

McCarthy, a Democratic senator from Minnesota (not to be confused with the red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy from Wisconsin), decided in 1968 to challenge incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Democratic primary campaign. McCarthy was motivated principally by his opposition to the Vietnam War.

McCarthy was all alone going up against a sitting president. Anti-war activists had tried to enlist both Sens. Robert Kennedy and George McGovern to run, but they declined.

Initially, McCarthy’s quest looked hopeless. But anti-war students from around the nation, including many hippies who cut their hair to “get clean for Gene,” traveled to New Hampshire to work for him in the primary, and support for McCarthy began in grow.

He didn’t win in New Hampshire, but he scored 42 percent of the popular vote to Johnson’s 49 percent. This inspired me – and knocked the wind out of Johnson.

I wasn’t old enough to vote (legal voting age at the time was 21 or older) but I was ready to sign on to McCarthy’s crusade. What I ended up doing was going door to door to collect signatures to get him on the primary ballot in Ohio.

The New Hampshire primary took place on March 12, and on March 16 Kennedy entered the race. And then, on March 31, Johnson shocked the nation with the announcement that he would not seek re-election.

Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a former senator from Minnesota himself, entered the race as the establishment candidate. Kennedy was assassinated shortly after the California primary and, after a tumultuous Democratic convention in Chicago, with protesters and police battling in the streets, Humphrey won the nomination.

McCarthy gave only a lukewarm endorsement of Humphrey and barely campaigned for him. For my part, while I still admired McCarthy and was sorry he came up short, I nonetheless pivoted to backing Humphrey.

Humphrey lost by a thin margin. Who knows, if McCarthy had given his full support, the outcome might have been different.

But he didn’t, and the result was President Richard M. Nixon.

It seems to me there’s a simple but important lesson in this for the Bernie bros: If your guy doesn’t win, support the next-best candidate because, if you don’t, there’s no telling who you might end up with.

Bernie supporters, how do you like the sound of this: “I, Donald J. Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States ... ” ?

This story was originally published July 28, 2016 at 3:44 PM with the headline "Hey, Berniacs: Time to move on to next-best candidate."