By God, For All Our Sakes, I Hope So!

Hillary Gets It Done

by Lisa Van Dusen

Hillary Clinton's decision late yesterday to suspend her campaign as of tomorrow and endorse Barack Obama did wonders to improve the prospects of the Democratic party in November.

For a moment after he proclaimed himself the presumptive Democratic nominee for president Tuesday night on a stage in St. Paul, Obama looked like he was either genuinely overcome by the moment or really, really pissed off.

Given the kind of night he was having, it could have been either one or a little of both.

Could be he was feeling a little conflicted because the opponent he had finally, indisputably defeated after a gruelingly long battle had just injected the proceedings with a definite sense of surreal, Lewis Carroll cognitive dissonance by delivering an un-concession speech so she could have more cake.

It was a great disappointment to many Democrats, including many in her own campaign, who thought that Clinton would, despite everything her behaviour had predicted up to that point, rise to the occasion.

That, in the end -- which is what it was by any sane measure -- she would say something that would remind us of a more innocent time, a time before she raised a certain kind of politics to heights previously unseen in most constitutional democracies.

But what Clinton delivered Tuesday night in New York was more of a call to arms, with a deluge of cold water thrown in for good measure.

Faced with the final, irrefutable fact of her defeat, Senator Clinton went out on that stage and delivered her stump speech, as though it was just another night on the campaign trail, only with a tribute to herself thrown in, and topped off by an appeal to the supporters she desperately wants to characterize as a critical mass-fuelled movement, to e-mail in their suggestions as to what she should do next.

There was a fleeting mention of Obama off the top, with no mention of the words won or nominee, and then onto her own plans, which in the real world would consist of a couple of weeks of dogs-up in Chappaqua followed by some targeted surrogate work for her party's historic, unexpectedly weary nominee.

But in a moment that was essentially a refutation of both the occasion and reality, both electoral and historic, Senator Clinton tastelessly raised the question of What Hillary Wants on a night when the only answer should have been "to unite the Democratic Party" and followed it by its own answer: Leverage.

Rather than displaying any of the class or generosity of spirit that the Obama campaign was squinting away at their monitors straining to hear, she commanded that leverage from the masses. Hillary Clinton put in motion an option of presenting the public and Obama with the post-Internet version of the Miracle on 34th Street courtroom mailbag scene: A claim of millions of e-mails representing an "uncontrollable" grassroots movement to either put her on the ticket or push on to a bloodbath in Denver.

She can overtake the impression she left for history and redeem Tuesday night by delivering a vastly different message tomorrow. This time, they say, she will.