I think that was the best speech I have seen Hillary give. I full believe it was sincere. It had great lines, the Harriet Tubman reference was perfect! I was pleawsed that she asked, "Who were you in this for?" And she went on to ask, Are you in this for me or for the country and these people that I met on the trail?
And Bill beamed with pride. I think there should be no doubt about where Hillary stands in the election. And if her supporters can't vote for Obama now, then they are twisted. And I bet she secured a place on any presidental commission that will develop universal health care.
She couldn't have done anymore than she did. Excellent!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Hillary was Awesome
Posted by USWest at 8:08 PM
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8 comments:
I hope there aren't too many of these morons out there, but the comments on this site are not encouraging.
How can a Hillary supporter listen to that and not want to vote for Obama? She's done all she can. Some of these PUMAs are incorrigible.
This may be paranoia, but particularly regarding the anonymous commenters Bell Curve refers to, might many "diehard PUMAs" not be Republican-leaning trolls?
I agree that the speech was excellent, and I also thought it had her characteristic style. If you liked her speeches before, I can't see how you wouldn't like that one.
Just in case they aren't trolls, I admit I'm puzzled by the notion that "four years is not too long to wait", as several commenters indicated.
In other circumstances -- `flush times' when Jesse Ventura and, well, George Bush, get elected because everything seems to be going pretty well and a benign neglect approach to government doesn't seem so bad -- I can grasp the gamesmanship of sacrificing the present election to demand attention for the next. (A very similar argument is what Glenn Greenwald claims to justify voting out `bad Dems' -- namely, that this cycle we'll get plenty of Dems elected, so we can afford to pick and choose.)
But in terms of the presidential election, I just can't imagine a Democrat that wouldn't have a sense of urgency about how bad things are NOW. The idea that another four years of this or worse is an acceptable sacrifice is unconscionable to me.
I could only hear Hillary speak on the radio, but even so, I reacted exactly as USWest did. It was a great, feisty speech. The two lines I liked best were the same ones USWest mentioned: "Who were you in this for?" and the extended Harriet Tubman quote. As the NPR commentators agreed, while some people inevitably will parse the speech looking for details to nitpick, in truth she did as much as she possibly could to support Obama. I also thought it was excellent.
I should probably look up the speech then - the snippet on the news here was "I'm Hillary Clinton and I do NOT approve this message", in reference to that John McCain ad - I liked it, and from what you're saying, sounds like it was a good speech, with a very clear support Obama message. Hoorah.
FYI Pombat, the quote you gave was not from her speech tonight, but from an appearance a few days ago.
I just looked at the video, which added some nice details. Hillary's feistiest verbal jab came after she declared that everyone there had not worked so hard just to suffer four more years of a Republican in the White House. With so much derision in her voice it was almost bitter she shook her head and said, "No way. No how. No McCain."
You could see in her eyes she was adamant that McCain would be a disaster. It was good for Hillary supporters to see and feel that. As Bell Curve says, any former Hillary supporter who still thinks they should vote for McCain is out of their mind.
I thought the speech was great. It is exactly what I had hoped she would have done in her concession speech (or shortly after).
The press (and the Republicans) really really want this squabble to continue. CNN in particular is fanning these flames more than you might expect. FOX, of course, is making the Hillary vs Obama split THE story.
I've seen blog posts on Daily Kos etc that describe the PUMA events as really sad, Republican managed affairs. They describe events where Republicans outnumber PUMAs two to one. There is even a video clip of a group of supposed PUMAs riding around the Pepsi Center in a HUMVEE screaming and waving Hillary and McCain signs. But think of this. What kind of Democrat drives a HUMVEE???? IF these PUMAs really were Democrats in the primaries at all, my guess is that they are life long Republicans or conservative independents who have been supporting Hillary ONLY because of her gender and holding their nose or closing their eyes to her policy positions.
Now, as great as Hillary's speech was, we're still hearing some really worrying stories about Bill being bitter. He all but endorsed McCain the other day in Denver! I would hate for this to play out like the Clinton position on torture where Hillary adopted the anti-torture position but had Bill run around saying torture would OK sometimes.
By the way...a lot of the press reaction this morning is that Hillary didn't mean it and that it was just "barely the minimum" of what she needed to do. They say things like she didn't talk about Obama enough or attack McCain enough and stuff. They really really want this to continue to fester.
But my view is that they missed the point of WHO she was talking to. She wasn't talking to the undecideds. She wasn't talking to solid Obama people. She was talking to her own disappointed followers. She needed them to feel in their guts that she wants to keep going for the Democrats.
I think the effect will be to split the PUMAs (who are already a small minority of Hillary voters).
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