Are Bernie Sanders’ supporters hopelessly naive about winning elections and then governing? This argument is now being pushed by Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea Clinton and by the Clinton political machine as Sanders refuses to crown Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
The same argument has been used before by outraged establishment candidates of both parties following unexpected losses to alleged extremists. Supposedly, the establishment candidates alone know how to get things done in Washington. Fringe candidates like Sanders — and Donald Trump — allegedly lack the political savvy to accomplish anything substantial. If either is elected, his administration will allegedly make the current Washington stalemate pale by comparison as unrealistic visions of whatever kind — be it seriously regulating Wall Street or curbing unwanted immigrants — fall flat. Instead, sensible voters should back candidates with more modest legislative goals that might get through even a divided Congress and be signed into law by a proudly pragmatic president.
Back in 1968, an obscure U.S. senator from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy, was denounced in similar terms after the New Hampshire Democratic primary. McCarthy demanded that America end the Vietnam War, a conflict that seemed endless and, increasingly, unwinnable. McCarthy got a surprisingly high 42 percent of the vote, where incumbent President Lyndon Johnson’s 49 percent seemed almost a defeat. Following McCarthy’s strong showing, New York Sen. Robert Kennedy belatedly entered the race on March 16. Johnson withdrew on March 31.
A carpetbagger who, like his successor Clinton, had no ties to New York State before seeking to be elected as its next U.S. senator, Kennedy lacked the courage to risk defeat against Johnson despite his growing doubts about the war. Kennedy allowed McCarthy to test the presidential waters in order to give himself options after early party contests. Not exactly a profile in courage, the title of his late brother John’s 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning book (mostly written by Ted Sorensen).
I was in college in 1968 and still recall the insistence of political experts like my three political science professors, all liberal Democrats, that smart folks immediately dump McCarthy and endorse Kennedy. As is being said now about Sanders, so was it then said about McCarthy: a left-wing extremist who should quit the race and give the establishment Democratic candidate — then Kennedy, now Clinton — the additional time and funding to focus on the Republican candidates. Kennedy’s hesitation to run was soon reinterpreted by insiders as a shrewd move. Indeed, what nerve of McCarthy to claim any credit for persuading Johnson to withdraw? At heart, It was all Kennedy’s doing, these mainstream Democrats falsely claimed.
The media soon elevated Kennedy into a hero — the continuation of the Kennedy dynasty — and transformed his use of banal poetry in his speeches into a measure of alleged intellectual greatness. Yet, McCarthy, like Sanders, retained the support of thousands of young Americans who, in 1968, admired McCarthy’s willingness to challenge Johnson when no one else would. Many young men went “Clean for Gene,” cutting long hair and shaving beards in order not to turn off older voters before they could discuss McCarthy’s platform.
My political science professors omitted such party irregulars, so to speak, from their universe of successful American politicians. One professor in particular, Sidney Wise, had already influenced a number of his students to enter mainstream politics upon graduation. Wise’s substantial New York Times obituary (of Feb. 17, 1994) mentioned Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein and former Democratic House leader William Gray as Wise students who exemplified the correct way to get things done, regardless of one’s political leanings.
If Wise were alive today, he would no doubt join those Clinton supporters urging Sanders to see the light, concede the Democratic nomination to the establishment’s heroine, and avoid the supposedly inevitable landslide defeat otherwise facing the Democratic Party in November should Sanders somehow prevail over her.
Following Kennedy’s assassination on June 5, 1968, McCarthy remained in the race but eventually lost to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who stuck with his boss on the Vietnam War and thereby remained a good soldier but, for many urging him to break with Johnson, became a coward. Humphrey later lost the election to Richard Nixon, which was surely one prime example of the limits of political moderation.
True, 2016 is a different world from 1968, but Sanders’ supporters, like McCarthy’s supporters back then, should not allow the Democratic political establishment to push them away from their uplifting vision of a transformed America.
Howard Segal is a professor of history at the University of Maine.