Sanders keeps campaigning in D.C., but supporters lament the end

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a rally in Washington, D.C., June 9, 2016. (Photo: Cliff Owen/AP)

Bernie Sanders ignored the approaching end of his presidential candidacy Thursday evening at an outdoor rally in the nation’s capital, seeking to maintain political leverage in the run-up to the Democratic convention in July.

But the 74-year-old Democratic presidential candidate signaled earlier in the day that while he seeks to move the Democratic Party left at the convention, he will not undercut presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as she moves toward a general-election matchup with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Sanders spoke for an hour to 3,000 supporters at a skate park next to RFK Stadium — the former home field of the NFL’s Washington Redskins — and made no mention of Clinton or of the fact that President Obama had endorsed her candidacy earlier in the day.

Around the time that Sanders arrived at the evening rally, news broke that Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a favorite of progressives, was set to endorse Clinton as well.

Sanders opened his remarks by thanking the crowd for “being part of a political revolution.”

The crowd responded with chants of “Thank you, Bernie!”

It was the closest that the 74-year-old Democratic Socialist came to publicly acknowledging the inevitable end of his candidacy, after Clinton crossed the delegate threshold needed to clinch the nomination earlier this week.

A moment later Sanders noted that pundits had predicted his campaign would not last long, and said, “Well, here we are — it’s mid-June, and we’re still standing.”

Sanders said that the results from the California primary on Tuesday had yet to come in. And he ended by asking the crowd to vote for him in next Tuesday’s D.C. primary election, which will mark the end of the primary process.

But after a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid earlier in the day, Reid told reporters that Sanders seemed to have “accepted” that he would not be the nominee.

Sanders also met with Obama at the White House Thursday. Afterward he told reporters that he would meet with Clinton “in the near future to see how we can work together to defeat Donald Trump and to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent.”

Sanders pledged to “work as hard as I can to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president of the United States.”

The Sanders supporters who introduced him to the crowd at the evening rally were more transparent.

“These last few days have been difficult. … I’ve had to go into my hotel room and just hold on,” said Native American tribal rights leader Deborah Parker.

And Cornel West, a professor and public intellectual, urged the crowd to “never allow despair to have the last word.”

West made mention of Clinton and Trump, trashing them both but making it clear that Trump represented a far more unacceptable choice.

“We know that brother Trump is an narcissistic neofascist. Don’t let corporate media convince you that simply because you’re not crazy about the milquetoast neoliberal sister Hillary, there’s something wrong with you,” West said. “We know the difference between a neoliberal and a neofascist, so you make your own decisions.”

Sanders supporters in the crowd were saddened by their preferred candidate’s failure to beat Clinton, but expressed more weary frustration than anger at their options.

“His candidacy has shown the depths of frustration. I’m glad he ran,” said Laura Richards, a longtime D.C. political activist.

“Now that this is ending, I guess the feminist, civil rights angle is coming out,” she said, referring to Clinton’s historic status as the first woman to be the presumptive presidential nominee of any major political party.

Richards shook her head and added, “I’m not there yet.”

But she did think the majority of Sanders supporters would get over their disappointment and vote for Clinton, in large part because of Trump.

Adam Grachek, a 19-year-old Ohio State student in D.C. for the summer as an intern, said he hoped Sanders would take his candidacy to the convention to make a point and to influence the party’s platform.

“If it was any other Republican,” he said, he would vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presumptive nominee. But unless the election is a blowout, he said, he will swallow his displeasure with Clinton and vote for her.

“Since it’s Donald Trump, I think the stakes are much higher,” he said. “Donald Trump stands for everything I hate.”