Tonight, a long and gru­el­ing pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nat­ing sea­son drew to a close, with nom­i­nat­ing events in New Jer­sey, Cal­i­for­nia, New Mex­i­co, South Dako­ta, North Dako­ta, and Mon­tana. With the excep­tion of North Dako­ta and Mon­tana, ear­ly returns show Hillary Clin­ton pre­vail­ing, includ­ing in Cal­i­for­nia, which means she has the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s 2016 pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion locked up.

(The Dis­trict of Colum­bia will hold the very last event of the sea­son next Tues­day, but only a few del­e­gates are at stake in that contest.)

Clin­ton declared her­self the pre­sump­tive nom­i­nee in a pow­er­ful, elo­quent speech deliv­ered in Brook­lyn, cel­e­brat­ing the his­toric shat­ter­ing of the glass ceil­ing that she said had “eigh­teen mil­lion cracks” in it exact­ly eight years ago.

““Although we weren’t able to shat­ter that high­est, hard­est glass ceil­ing this time, thanks to you, it’s got about eigh­teen mil­lion cracks in it,” Clin­ton said on June 7th, 2008. “And the light is shin­ing through like nev­er before, fill­ing us all with the hope and the sure knowl­edge that the path will be a lit­tle eas­i­er next time.”

Pre­cise­ly eight years lat­er, Clin­ton’s prophet­ic words have been ful­filled. Today she became the first woman like­ly to be nom­i­nat­ed by a major polit­i­cal par­ty in the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, which is a huge­ly sig­nif­i­cant accomplishment.

Clin­ton was mag­nan­i­mous in vic­to­ry, grace­ful­ly cel­e­brat­ing her achieve­ment and shar­ing it every­one who had invest­ed in her while con­grat­u­lat­ing Bernie Sanders for run­ning one of the most remark­able, peo­ple-pow­ered cam­paigns in U.S. his­to­ry. Again and again, she used lan­guage evok­ing pro­gres­sive val­ues and principles.

Sanders, speak­ing hours lat­er, vowed to push for­ward and con­tin­ue work­ing to earn del­e­gates and votes in the Dis­trict of Columbi­a’s June 14th Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry, the very last event on the cal­en­dar, and then after that, take the fight to Philadel­phia, the site of the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Convention.

Sanders briefly acknowl­edged speak­ing with Clin­ton, but oth­er­wise did not men­tion her. He blast­ed Don­ald Trump, (who had made an over­ture to his sup­port­ers ear­li­er in the evening), but opt­ed not to say any­thing neg­a­tive about Clinton.

The White House announced that Pres­i­dent Oba­ma had tele­phoned both Clin­ton and Sanders to con­grat­u­late them on run­ning inspir­ing campaigns.

We at NPI join Pres­i­dent Oba­ma in offer­ing our con­grat­u­la­tions to the can­di­dates. It has been a long pri­ma­ry sea­son, and it’s appro­pri­ate to cel­e­brate the his­to­ry that both can­di­dates have made. Hillary Clin­ton has bro­ken one of the biggest bar­ri­ers in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics by secur­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion. Bernie Sanders has come fur­ther than just about any pro­gres­sive pres­i­den­tial can­di­date in his­to­ry by win­ning around two dozen states and earn­ing ten mil­lion votes.

When Bernie began his jour­ney in April of 2015, few pun­dits or observers expect­ed the “Demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ist from Ver­mont” to go very far. He him­self not­ed in his remarks tonight that he was treat­ed at the out­set as a fringe can­di­date. Peo­ple work­ing in big media regard­ed his can­di­da­cy with amuse­ment and derision.

Over the course of the next year, Bernie utter­ly aston­ished them by gal­va­niz­ing a large peo­ple-pow­ered move­ment and rais­ing large amounts of mon­ey over the Inter­net from small donors. Thanks to Bernie’s cam­paign, Act­Blue now has over three mil­lion cred­it cards on file — to the con­ster­na­tion of Repub­li­cans.

Bernie may not end up as the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee, but he and his sup­port­ers have already won a huge vic­to­ry. They have begun a much-need­ed trans­for­ma­tion of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and the pro­gres­sive move­ment that will reshape Amer­i­can pol­i­tics for years to come. Bernie’s cam­paign put bold pro­gres­sive ideas like Medicare For All or expan­sion of Social Secu­ri­ty on the table for dis­cus­sion, and has slow­ly been push­ing Hillary Clin­ton’s cam­paign in a more pro­gres­sive direction.

Hillary Clin­ton and Bernie Sanders, cam­paign­ing in Wash­ing­ton State in March 2016 (Pho­to art: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Clin­ton and Sanders have each demon­strat­ed resilience and sta­mi­na by cam­paign­ing vig­or­ous­ly for six months in every state in the coun­try. With nom­i­nat­ing sea­son now draw­ing to a close, we tip our hats to them and say, con­grat­u­la­tions and well done.

Some of us at NPI are Hillary sup­port­ers, and some of are Bernie sup­port­ers. As an orga­ni­za­tion, we have no posi­tion because we do not endorse can­di­dates and we do not do any elec­tion­eer­ing for or against any candidate.

I myself am a Bernie Sanders sup­port­er. I was elect­ed as a del­e­gate to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion last month for Bernie, and I remain com­mit­ted to his can­di­da­cy as long as he choos­es to be an active can­di­date. Were I him, I would have used my speech tonight to exit the pres­i­den­tial con­test and begin the work of cre­at­ing a per­ma­nent cam­paign to con­tin­ue rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, though I respect his deci­sion to stay in and com­pete in the D.C. primary.

I believe strong­ly that Bernie’s impact will be far greater over the long-term if he can piv­ot from being a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date to a par­ty leader.

Howard Dean suc­cess­ful­ly did this twelve years ago. Dean for Amer­i­ca became Democ­ra­cy For Amer­i­ca (which today employs NPI Pres­i­dent Robert Cruick­shank as Senior Cam­paign Man­ag­er) and Dean was cho­sen to be the chair of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee fol­low­ing the 2004 pres­i­den­tial election.

Under Dean and the fifty-state strat­e­gy, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty swept to vic­to­ry in the 2006 and 2008 elec­tions, win­ning both hous­es of Con­gress as well as the pres­i­den­cy. Most of Dean’s gains were wiped out fol­low­ing his depar­ture from the DNC, but his impact con­tin­ues to be felt, and the pro­gres­sive polit­i­cal infra­struc­ture he built con­tin­ues to help pro­gres­sive can­di­dates and causes.

Thanks to Howard Dean, Democ­ra­cy for Amer­i­ca stood ready pro­vide sup­port and aid to Bernie Sanders after he decid­ed to run for Pres­i­dent — even though Dean him­self chose to endorse and work for Hillary Clinton.

Sanders now has a sim­i­lar oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a lega­cy that will con­tin­ue to change Amer­i­ca for the bet­ter. Con­sid­er­ing that Sanders’ cam­paign con­quered heights nev­er reached by Dean, his long-term impact could be even greater than Dean’s.

Dean him­self seems to rec­og­nize Sanders’ poten­tial. He also knows how hard it is to leave the trail. As he told The New York Times ear­li­er tonight:

“It’s very hard to con­cede,” he said. “You are tired. You are cranky. You’ve worked your butt off for two years.”

Nobody, Mr. Dean said, resist­ed end­ing a pres­i­den­tial cam­paign more than he did. Once a high-fly­ing front-run­ner, he had a string of set­backs that left him feel­ing, by Feb­ru­ary 2004, much as Mr. Sanders does today: furi­ous at an unfair sys­tem and deter­mined to fight on.

Then Al Gore called. Mr. Dean ful­mi­nat­ed, unin­ter­rupt­ed, for 10 min­utes, “rant­i­ng and rav­ing,” he recalled. But Mr. Gore, schooled in the art of painful con­ces­sions, was blunt. “You know, Howard,” he said, “This is not real­ly about you. This is about the country.”

The pro­gres­sive can­di­dates and caus­es of the future will be much bet­ter posi­tioned to suc­ceed if Sanders can con­vert his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign into a per­ma­nent cam­paign to raise Amer­i­ca’s qual­i­ty of life, and keep his sup­port­ers engaged in pro­gres­sive pol­i­tics. It won’t be sim­ple or easy, but if the rev­o­lu­tion is to con­tin­ue, then Bernie has to find a way to inspire as many of the peo­ple who vot­ed for him, donat­ed to him, and vol­un­teered for him to stay involved.

It’s unre­al­is­tic to expect peo­ple to stay involved if they don’t have some­thing to do, so no task is more impor­tant than map­ping out pri­or­i­ties for the com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion sea­son. For Team Bernie, these could include defeat­ing Trump, get­ting rid of so-called superdel­e­gates, insist­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty offer the Amer­i­can peo­ple a pro­gres­sive plat­form root­ed in pro­gres­sive val­ues, and elect­ing pro­gres­sive Democ­rats down­bal­lot. Beyond the elec­tion, there are a seem­ing­ly end­less num­ber of issues to pick from to orga­nize around.

Build­ing pro­gres­sive infra­struc­ture is hard work, and at times, it can seem like a thank­less job. But it’s very reward­ing. There is a tremen­dous val­ue to cre­at­ing orga­ni­za­tions and projects with stay­ing pow­er. At NPI, fol­low­ing an elec­tion, we don’t ramp down and we don’t turn out the lights. We keep on going, thanks to the loy­al­ty of our ded­i­cat­ed sup­port­ers. And though we are always work­ing on one short term objec­tive or anoth­er, we’re always think­ing long term.

We need to train more pro­gres­sives to be effec­tive activists and to orga­nize their com­mu­ni­ties and con­stituen­cies on a year-round basis, remov­ing bar­ri­ers to par­tic­i­pa­tion in our polit­i­cal sys­tem. We have to help our fel­low Amer­i­cans real­ize that that we don’t just have elec­tions in this coun­try in years divis­i­ble by four. Deci­sions that affect peo­ple’s lives aren’t just made every once in a while. They’re being made all the time. Those who show up will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to influ­ence the deci­sions that get made. Those who don’t, won’t.

Four­teen years ago, after start­ing Per­ma­nent Defense, I got involved in my first cam­paign. It was the Bush error. I joined the fight against Tim Eyman’s I‑776, because I want­ed to ensure that Sound Tran­sit could start con­struc­tion on a region­al line rail spine for our region. I became real­ly invest­ed in NO on I‑776.

I worked hard because I want­ed to win.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the cam­paign to defeat I‑776 was unsuc­cess­ful, and the 2002 elec­tions were a huge dis­ap­point­ment. I could have walked away from pol­i­tics at that point. I could have said, for­get this. But I did­n’t. I stayed involved. I resolved to car­ry on and keep fight­ing. And I’m glad I have.

When I‑776 passed, Tim Eyman thought he’d suc­ceed­ed in shut­ting down Sound Tran­sit’s Cen­tral Link light rail. But he was wrong. Sound Tran­sit chal­lenged I‑776 in court, and won approval to con­tin­ue col­lect­ing the vehi­cle fees it had pledged to pay off bonds. Then, to Eyman’s utter aston­ish­ment, it secured fed­er­al fund­ing to break ground. Six years lat­er, the light rail line Eyman thought he’d killed opened to the pub­lic, and since then, three new sta­tions have been added to it, with anoth­er one on the way this Sep­tem­ber and many more under construction.

The moral of this sto­ry is sim­ple: Stay involved, because there’s anoth­er cam­paign that needs to be won. If you walk away, then you’re depriv­ing a cause or a can­di­date some­where of bad­ly-need­ed help.

As Bernie him­self has said, his cam­paign isn’t about him. It is rather about a ideas this coun­try needs to become more pros­per­ous and inclu­sive. Those ideas are still in need of cham­pi­ons to bring them to fruition.

As nom­i­nat­ing sea­son ends and sum­mer begins, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty will need to uni­fy if it is to elect its nom­i­nee and put Amer­i­ca on a pro­gres­sive path.

This orga­ni­za­tion is not affil­i­at­ed with a polit­i­cal par­ty and won’t be back­ing any can­di­date, but I will be sup­port­ing Hillary Clin­ton this sum­mer and fall indi­vid­u­al­ly in my capac­i­ty as a Demo­c­ra­t­ic activist and par­ty leader.

After Bernie, Hillary is the can­di­date who best rep­re­sents my val­ues and can defeat Don­ald Trump. So that’s who I’ll be enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly vot­ing for.

As a prac­ti­cal­ly-mind­ed activist, I know I can’t always get what I want, but I can get a lot of what I want over time through hard work and nego­ti­a­tion. In the immor­tal words of the Rolling Stones: You can’t always get what you want/But if you try some­times well you just might find/You get what you need. 

To every­body out there who believes that Amer­i­ca needs pro­gres­sive change and is feel­ing dis­ap­point­ed, I have five words for you: Don’t burn out. Keep orga­niz­ing.

You’ll be glad you did.