Senator Clinton is meeting with her 1700 plus delegates today. We are told it is so that she can release them. I hope she successfully does that because last night, as the white "Hillary" signs were passed out to the entire crowd (just as the Kenedy signs were the night before) it was hard not to feel like this primary will never be over and behind us.
In February the caucus floor in Boise was tense but light hearted as
we worked to persuade Democratic caucus goers to choose Senator Obama
over Senator Clinton. Last night here in Denver in the sea of
respectful Hillary signs, there were tense moments. I
couldn't help feeling how the room had over 1700 Clinton Delegates,
many of whom are now happily Obama supporters, but others for whom that
process of shifting their focus and support has not yet happened.
Our delegation has seemed to move gracefully in this but those divided states feed each other's frustrations I'm sure the more time they spend feeling again like there is any glimmer of hope that supper delegates could come over or something could happen to sink Senator Obama and let Hillary ride into the general election victorious. But this morning we Obama delegates signed over our votes to Senator Obama. They will be reported from a microphone and lap top console on the floor of the convention tonight. The Hillary delegates are saving their votes until later, after their meeting with her.
Last night I felt at moments that she was still campaigning. One of the threads in her speech asked whether her supporters were in this for the people affected by the issues. She asked again and again were they in it for this or that. But the end of what she was saying trailed off, seemed almost grammatically to be missing as if she left a line out of her speech. The set of questions to her supporters reached no conclusion. That conclusion seems as if it should have been then to say "Well then Barack Obama is your President." It didn't happen though and the series of questions trailed off. I'm sure it is so hard after all she has done to run for this office.
She did make some strong statements about our need to have Senator Obama in the white house. And finally the white signs were replaced with the tall blue "Obama UNITY" & "Hillary UNITY" signs. The feeling that she was campaigning faded a bit and people streamed out into the night, Obama delegates carrying a few Hillary signs and some Hillary supporters carrying Obama signs. May we be done tonight after the vote. Finally done and on to talking to voters about the differences between Senator Obama and John McCain.
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