Two Telling Speeches

Hillary Clinton had already demonstrated that she doesn’t have an ounce of grace in her, but last night I was still stunned by her speech. (Video, Audio) It was a wasted opportunity to bring her supporters around to accepting that she has lost the campaign. If I heard her right, her comments about having each vote counted were a veiled threat to bring the problem of Florida’s and Michigan’s delegates to the floor at the convention. She also spent an enormous amount of time arguing her point yet again that she was the best candidate. This made sense in earlier speeches, but by this time she must have known that Obama already had the delegates he needed to win the nomination. I should have thought that that fact spoke loud and clear to her. She is, after all, a politician whose merit, in the end, has to be measured by whether or not she won.

Remember Al Gore? Remember the graceful exit he took after the Supreme Court decision on Florida? Sure, that was a flawed process, like none we had ever seen, but he knew the process was more important than him as an individual and the Democratic candidate. Clinton doesn’t seem to get that. I was also disappointed that such a tough politician, who claims to be the most experienced and presidential, ended her speech by saying she had made no decision yet. Instead she wanted supporters to give her suggestions. No grand gestures of a leader here. She missed a great opportunity for some exciting political theater that could have gained her a large measure of good will in the Democratic Party, even after the way she had run her campaign.

Obama, by contrast, hit it out of the park. (Video, Transcript). He dealt with Clinton right off the bat, showing grace and respect in full measure, as he praised all the Democratic candidates and in particular Clinton, who made it a tough race and Obama a better candidate for it. Then he turned his sights on McCain. Excellent. That argument, the case against McCain, can wait for another day on this blog. I’m glad to see that McCain has already found himself forced to accept the rhetorical terms of the debate imposed by Obama. He’s now talking about the right and wrong kinds of change. That’s a good start for the Democrats.

Ironically, on this historic day, when an African American won the delegates necessary to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency, I expended more mental energy on Clinton. Her name is everywhere in the media today as well, presenting Obama now with his first major challenge as the presumptive nominee. I’m looking forward to seeing how this political drama plays out, at least the public side of it. I don’t expect it to end in Obama’s picking Clinton as his running mate. Her image doesn’t comport with his campaign theme of change. More to the point, I don’t see her as being capable of taking orders from Obama. Who needs that? And she’s got a skeleton in her closet called Bill, a man seemingly determined to undermine his own stature.