US News
Hillary: Last hurrah or new beginning?
By Pat Reber Aug 27, 2008, 9:05 GMT
Denver, Colorado - Anyone who expected Hillary Clinton to bow gracefully from the scene or be a sore loser may want to think twice after the heartfelt endorsement she delivered for her onetime rival Barack Obama for US president.
The former first lady, 60, made a grand, triumphant entry into the Pepsi Center convention hall Tuesday evening, creating a din of shouts, cheers and whistles among the 4,400 delegates gathered to nominate Obama.
Her audience whipped out large white Hillary signs that nearly covered up crowd, waving them while they shouted. One may have even thought she had won the nomination - or was setting the stage for some nominating convention in the future.
The roar died down after three minutes, only to rise again after her declaration that she was a 'proud supporter of Barack Obama.'
'Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines,' the New York Senator said.
Clinton said electing Obama president on November 4 over presumptive Republican nominee John McCain was a 'fight for the future' at a time when centre-left Democrats must 'take back the country we love.'
Her nationally-broadcast 23-minute address was interrupted loudly and often with more deafening roars, cementing her star status in the party and importance to Obama in drawing in women and blue-collar workers who have been reluctant to support him.
Clinton has been campaigning for Obama since June, when she conceded her historic, hard-fought bid to the African-American senator from Illinois.
Yet much weighed on her convention speech.
She had to convince her diehard supporters and 18 million primary voters to release their bitterness and overcome lingering resentment that has prompted many to say they will not vote for Obama.
And she had to avoid stealing the show from Obama, who will deliver his acceptance speech Thursday night before a throng of 75,000 at Denver's Invesco stadium.
Few women as powerful as Clinton have ever been in such a situation of begging their supporters to back someone else.
Clinton, 60, said she had run for the Democratic nomination 'to stand up for all those who have been invisible to their government for eight long years' under US President George W Bush.
'Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should too,'she said.
In a salute to her supporters and voters who sent more than 40 per cent of the party's delegates to the four-day convention, she recalled dramatic moments from the primary season.
She spoke of a cancer-afflicted mother of two autistic children who had painted Hillary's name on her shaven head 'and asked me to fight for health care.'
The convention hall erupted in laughter when she tipped her hat to the 'sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits' who had stood by her during the gruelling year-long bid for the nomination.
Then Clinton turned serious, urging them to ask themselves the question: 'Were you in this campaign just for me?' Or were they in it for the cause of affordable health care and people struggling against 'jobs lost, houses gone, falling wages, rising prices?'
It was not clear if her speech had convinced all of her delegates in Denver.
Clinton is expected to meet with them Wednesday afternoon and ask them one final time to support Obama in the evening's state-by-state roll call vote that could be cut short under party rules if there is a unanimous acclimation for Obama.
The message of the need to knock on doors and make phone calls for Obama got through to at least one of Clinton's loyal campaign workers, Allida Black of Virginia, who said she had worked for 19 months, across 14 states and emptied her savings for Clinton's campaign.
'The speech was out of the ball park,' Black told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. It was 'fierce' and 'passionate.'
'She gave us our marching orders,' Black said. 'This is not about us.'
But Black also said she would push for a full roll-call vote, and so should the Obama campaign, because delegates had shown the 'tremendous unity in the true spirit of the party' with their emotional reception for Clinton.
'That would allow us to throw ourselves heart and soul into the Obama campaign afterwards,' she said.
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Older Talkback
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Thomas Lifson
Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus writes this morning in the Wall Street Journal about the Orwellian-named 'Employee Free Choice Act.' Speaking from experience, Marcus sounds the alarm that EFCA 'would virtually guarantee that every company becomes unionized.' He also notes a little noticed provision of EFCA that would give federal arbitrators unprecedented ability to set a company's wages.
Thus does the government take over control of private business without nationalizing it, supplying plausible deniability of the 'socialism' label.
The track record of unions in wrecking the automobile and steel industries provides a blueprint for hindering the felxibility that has made nonunion industries flexible enough to adjust to the rapidly-changing dynamic of the world economy.
The DNC took victory away from Hillary
Hillary Clinton got 18,046,007 votes (versus 17,869,542 for obama) and 47.9% of the democratic party's total vote (versus 47.4% for Obama) before the DNC took Michigan away and gave delegates to Obama.
Joe Biden's presidential campaign ended after a finishing fifth place with 0.9% in the Iowa Caucus, about 7000 votes total.
Go to:
www.hcsfjm.com
Go look at the documentary.
well duh like the economy isn't already wrecked under bush.
''Obama is dangerous. I would rather lose 2008 and get Hillary in 2012.''
Oh, you mean he's black. Come on, just say it. Stop making excuses.
And Billary will never be in the White house. Nope. Never gonna happen.
Way to be a team player, playa!
The Repubs are clearly scared now. Look at any message board and see how many versions of 'I'm a Democrat who will vote Republican for the first time ever' messages there are. don't be duped.
And frankly, the founder of Home Depot should be spending more time in the office these days...
...the Hillary supporters are doing the math the guy above just showed you, and you cannot add two and two.
Hillary would have been the ideal candidate. She would have carried all of her voters in. She had a ready-made political machine. Obma would have unfettered access to a former president.
Now, all those dem voters are pissed and you blaming the republicans for another one of your mushroom-inspired conspiricy theories just shows how desperate YOU are.
Instead Obama picked Biden, a lazy, stupid, lifetime congressional wag, with syntax so ignorant the right has millions of feet of tape to play.
Think he's smart?
'...not qualifed for the job'
Well, everyone is right about something I guess...
Claiming that Democrats who do not support Obama are racist not only does not help, but actually hurts his cause. There are many who have worked their whole life to fight racism both in their personal life and in the workplace. Many people I know were disenchanted with Obama for playing the race card on Bill and Hillary Clinton. Bill Clinton in particular has done so much work towards racial reconciliation and creating opportunities for minority groups in the form of expanded access to health care and schooling that it was laughable how he was portrayed. I'd advise you to stop the blame game, because many people are starting to realize that no matter how much they do and no matter how strongly they try to combat racism, there will always be the know-it-all like you who would try to blacken their character. If this can be done to Clinton who at one point was called the first 'black' president for his work, it can happen to anyone. And this is dangerous, because as such understanding evolves, people begin to no longer care if they are called racist or not. These developments do not help minority groups, but rather marginalize the issue. Racism is something very, very serious. It is not an epithet to be thrown around in blame games.
Lazy and stupid??? Think you got the names mixed up, SP, I believe it's spelled B U S H!
'Huh
''Oh, you mean he's black. Come on, just say it. Stop making excuses.
And Billary will never be in the White house. Nope. Never gonna happen.
Way to be a team player, playa!'
So, vote for someone who isn't qualified to do the job or you are a racist.
That pretty much sums up the whole Obama campaign right there.
Come on you people, I agree that Clinton would have been a great president, but we have Obama. Does anyone actualy think that McCain would be better??? If you ask me, the people who would have voted for Clinton and now vote for McCain aren't angry dems. they are republican soccer moms who where going to vote for a woman. So realy, all this focus by the republicans on Hillary supporters voting for McCain is a bunch of crap.
...the libnazi press has, for three days, been begging the dems to come up with a message and so far, not a single serve.
Hillary just casterated Obama, unless you are deaf, dumb and blind. She never rejected the McCain ad's premise that he is unfit for the job, and basically, never really asked her constituancy to bend to the dems will. Bill ran Obam athrough at a speech earlier this week in his own special way as well.
If Obama wins, Hillary's career is over.
If McCain wins, she has a shot next time.
That is the 800 lb canary chirping in your ear.
Gazing at the crystal ball again, SP?
...why in the world would I need that, when all I have to do is simply turn on the television, watch and listen?
by any means. Hillary is too intelligent and knowledgeable to just walk away from serving this country. She is young enough and has enough to offer for years to come. She will no doubt be included in Obama's cabinet.
You mean Obama is, somehow, going to trust her to actually carry out policy when, by making her VP he could have isolated her permenantly? Do you really think that, if she could not stand a vetting for VP she could stand a vetting by Congress? This I gotta see.
if she has a big desire to serve her country - In the cabinet or elsewhere. But why get so riled up, SP, since you are so sure Mac
is definitely going to cinch the presidency?
page: 1
Obama is dangerousAug 27th, 2008 - 10:04:48
I would rather lose 2008 and get Hillary in 2012.
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