Felt the Bern? These readers are feeling your pain

To the editor: My memo to die-hard supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders for president: If you truly believe in the Vermont senator’s political revolution, you will achieve the opposite by weakening the Democratic Party and the nominee. (“Bernie Sanders supporters launched protest after Hillary Clinton was named the nominee,” July 26)

Instead, take your passion back home and work to place progressives on school boards, city councils and, most important, in state legislatures. The majority of states are controlled by Republicans, many of whom adopt from whole cloth the legislation written by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.

Support the presidential nominee and put your energy into electing people at home who believe in voting rights, income equality and environmental protection.

Barbara H. Bergen, Los Angeles

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To the editor: It was sad to see Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts give up on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. If they had campaigned for nomination as president and vice president (I don’t care who was which), they might have won.

Now we are supposed to vote for likely nominee Hillary Clinton, who has received millions from Wall Street banks. And that is just one thing; I almost don’t want to hear how else Bill and Hillary Clinton became extremely rich.

To top it off, Clinton’s choice for vice president, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, is a guy who says he was against the death penalty but for political expediency let the prisoner be put to death while he was governor, the same absence of principle that is the hallmark of the Clintons.

I may love Warren and Sanders, but I will not follow their lead. I will not give up, and I am not the only one.

Steven Ross, New York

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To the editor: When I was growing up, my family were devoted Stevenson Democrats. For two presidential elections in a row, Adlai Stevenson lost to Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Finally, in 1960, Eisenhower was termed out and there was nothing to hold our beloved candidate back — except for some young upstart. We laughed at John F. Kennedy: He was too young, too wealthy, inexperienced, untested and arrogant. After he was nominated, there was talk of not voting, splintering off into a new party or opting for a third party.

But there was a greater danger. Then-Vice President Richard Nixon was the opposing candidate. My family and friends held their noses and stumped for Kennedy.

The sad (or maybe happy) fact is that for any given generation there are more qualified candidates than there is time to give each a turn. I have often wondered what a Stevenson administration would have been like. Of course, we don’t have to wonder what a Nixon administration would have been; we ultimately had one.

Nancy Garf Moses, Irvine

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