A Time to Heal
Seeing Bill pretending to get all teary last night was a bit much for me. But after running an increasingly irritating and sometimes petulant campaign, HRC seems to have done the job last night. (The “sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits” sort of cracked me up, too). Ezra Klein puts it this way:
By my count, Hillary Clinton was interrupted for applause 29 times. In a week that was, thus far, themeless and tepid, intent on justifying itself and the familiarity of its speakers, Clinton’s speech was the first that made the Pepsi Center feel like the site of a convention rather than the host of a series of panels.
Clinton’s message was simple: Her candidacy was about something, not someone. She is a Democrat, not a Hillaryite. And if her supporters believed in her, then that’s what they were signing up for: An effort to expand health care, and weight economic policy towards the middle class, and refashion American foreign policy into something sane and recognizable. The candidate left in the race with a similar set of beliefs is Barack Obama.
Even if she did it reluctantly, Senator Clinton did her part in Denver. That some Clinton supporters are still angered by the sexism directed against their candidate during the campaign is certainly understandable. Everyone should be angry about that. But all of the clichés and catchphrases - “the stakes are too high,” “we can’t afford a third Bush term,” etc. - are all too true. So, fellow Democrats, we all know what we need to do - it is time to unite behind the Obama-Biden ticket. And bring your independent and Republican friends with you.
All aboard!
