Democrats desperate to put the primary acrimony behind them might find a silver lining: the unexpected closeness of the result seemed to have triggered some much-needed humility and magnanimity rather than chest-thumping.
While pundits and partisan axe-grinders told us for weeks the race turned on an ideological schism in the party, ordinary voters, even in primaries that attract the most partisan segment of the electorate, choose between real candidates, not partisan manifestos.