Hillary's speech

I watched all of Hillary's speech last night. Very impressive. I think the key takeaway is that she tied her campaign closely to Obama's. At the end of the day, as a United States Democratic Senator, she will be personally much more successful under an Obama presidency than under a McCain presidency. Under Obama, she will have a great deal of influence on how we fix our health care; under McCain, she'll be fighting just to stop his veto.

I think she realizes this intellectually, and realizes it somewhat emotionally, although I don't think she will be completely comfortable with having lost the nomination until Obama is actually elected.

The ultimate step for Hillary would be for her to tell her followers: if you vote for McCain, you are betraying me. She came very close to that last night. Besides her personal ambition, she really does want to preserve reproductive choice; she really does want to get us out of Iraq. She really does want a president who focuses on education. And she made it crystal clear last night that the best way accomplish all of those goals is to elect Obama.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else is that, at some level, I think Hillary respects Obama as a masterful politician. That requires, on her part, recognizing that he is a better politician than she is. Which has to be painful. But there is, in almost any competition, an appreciation for an ability to play the game well. Which Obama is consistently demonstrating.

As for the Clinton supporters who claim that they are going to be voting for McCain. I don't think there are that many of them. I saw a few of them marching down the street yesterday. I counted 9 of them. Followed by 12 cops.