Hillary won the nomination, as was always expected. I wanted Bernie but hey, Obama was the only time the candidate I supported in the primaries actually got the nomination. I’m used to not always getting my first choice. 

Some Bernie supporters are not taking this well. Some of their complaints are indeed legitimate — there were some irregularities in voting in some of the contests that are suspicious — but those things still wouldn’t have changed the ultimate result. After all, Hillary did get more delegates and more votes.

And that’s not counting the superdelegates. Some Bernie supporters spent the entire campaign complaining about them, saying that they were thwarting the “will of the people.” These same people are now saying that the superdelegates should ignore the “will of the people” and cast their votes for Bernie instead. Come now, how can you commend Bernie for having a consistent set of policies that don’t change based on poll numbers while arguing this?

Politics is a game, and it helps to know the rules of the game. Hillary plays the game well, and she has been preparing for this day for a dozen years or more. Those superdelegates were there the whole time, and Bernie could have been playing that same game to get them on his side all those years, but he didn’t. You can’t complain about the rules of the game if you don’t play.

And let’s face it, is this a bad thing? Isn’t that what politics is about — getting people on your side, making deals, compromising to get what you want? Isn’t that a skill we want our President to have?

I congratulate Bernie on his successful campaign. He originally announced that he was running to raise the issues he felt important, and he did. People are really talking about income equality now. He also accomplished two other goals: He showed that it is possible to run for President and raise money without having to appeal to the standard Big Money interests; and he showed that you can move to the left and even call yourself a socialist and still get significant support. Those are huge things that no political scientist would have predicted a year ago (including me, here on this blog).

The important thing now is to defeat Trump. If I were a betting man, I’d place my bets on Hillary winning this for a lot of reasons, but it’s certainly not a sure thing. Those Trump supporters are rabid and fanatic, and they will vote.  We Democrats have the problem of sitting at home on election day despite the fact that there are more of us than them, and despite the fact that polls show our views are the majority ones.

And when you don’t play the game, you lose.