I say this as someone who switched from Independent to Democrat just to vote for Bernie during the Democratic primaries. (And, before anyone uses this as ammunition to disqualify me as someone worth the Democratic Party's time, I voted for Kerry, then Obama twice.) Both Sanders and Clinton were gambles, for different reasons.
I voted for Bernie because finally I found a viable candidate who wanted to inject actual Leftist policy into the American discourse. He was refreshingly uncompromising and unapologetic, and I think his legacy will be electrifying a large (and growing) portion of the voting populace with a taste of what a progressive America may look like. That fire has been kindled, and is not likely to die. In fact, like the Tea Party movement on the right, it's likely to grow and become a more important consideration for the Democrats in 2018 and 2020.
That said, I'm not as sure that Bernie would have trounced Trump as handily some seem to think. The Trump campaign would have easily painted him as a left-wing extremist, using "socialist" and "Communist" (and, honestly, "Jew" as slurs to smear him. He may have pulled some more of the working-class white male vote than Clinton, but I don't think it would have been without risk.
Clinton... is Clinton. The enmity towards her on the right and the apathy towards her on the left were known quantities. I can understand why the DNC chose to push her over Sanders: they thought it was a safer bet to pit a safe, well-known, establishment entity against the rogue lunatic the Republicans had been left with. But they underestimated malaise and contempt (albeit, some of it blind hatred) many people felt toward the establishment. And they ignored the fervor, disgruntlement, and sense of alienation from the national class discourse felt by the working class whites (which they basically wrote off). I say this as a minority (Asian and gay), it was a mistake to alienate white men, on both the left (whom they caricatured as "Bernie Bros" ) and the right (antagonized as sexist, racist rednecks). I don't know that there was realistically anything the Dems could do in 2016 to court the Deep Red states, but certainly I think they did themselves a disservice in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Updated On: 11/9/16 at 11:00 AM