Live from DNC: Hillary Releases Her Delegates (Day 3)
Clinton asks the convention to acclaim Obama the nominee.
UPDATE: 8/27 4:30 pm PST
“Hill-ary. Hill-ary. Hill-ary!”
Earlier this afternoon, that’s how it began. In a large room crowded with Hillary Clinton supporters and plenty of press, including myself, the final steps were unfolding. The event was begun by Philadelphia’s Mayor Nutter, who started by praising the speech Hillary gave last night, then called for unity. When Hillary was introduced, the crowd went wild. When she began speaking, it was a continuation of last night’s strong unity call.
In a show of gratefulness, to both honor her supporters and display unity, Clinton thanked her delegates and acknowledged them all yet again and all they’d done for her. Then, without any fanfare but certainly with finality, she released her delegates to vote for Barack Obama. It was greeted with disappointment and a yell of “no!”
Then the chants began again. “Hill-ary. Hill-ary. Hill-ary!”
“It’s tradition to have a roll call. … As part of that tradition, I am here to release you. I signed my ballot today for Senator Obama. We have an election to wage and an election to win.” – Senator Hillary Clinton
During Clinton’s call for unity, chants broke out, as well as calls to have a full roll call vote. Some just won’t give up. Hillary did all she could to honor her supporters, but made it clear that Democrats must come together to win in November. She also, however, realizes, that she doesn’t own anyone’s vote.
“What that means is that both Senator Obama’s name and mine will be put into nomination this afternoon. I have spoken to many of you who have expressed your questions about what you should do. Many of you feel a responsibility to represent your voters. Others of you want the chance to vote what’s in your heart. Still others will be voting for Senator Obama because they want to demonstrate their commitment to the party and the nominee. So I am not telling you what to do.”
No doubt some will think she should have done just that: direct her delegates to cast their votes for Barack Obama. She’s made herself clear on all counts. Barack Obama will be the nominee, which was made official later this afternoon.
Once the roll call began, state after state weighed in. California and Illinois yielded. … It finally came to New York. The cameras panned to the the New York delegation as the political theater began its crescendo.
Senator Hillary Clinton was down on the floor when New York weighed in. The floor broke out in cheers and more chants. Then Clinton presented the acclamation. The message was clear cut. Let’s declare together in one voice, right here, right now, that Barack Obama will be our nominee.
Clinton then announced in formal language a suspension of the rules, what was needed to make it official, with New Yorkers all around her and the crowd cheering. The hall seconded Senator Clinton’s suspension of the rules and that was that. Barack Obama finally had the number needed to be the first African American in United States history to win the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
It’s been an extraordinary year for Democrats, having a woman and an African American making history in the same election season, especially two people as incredibly talented on all fronts.
Hillary Clinton went a long way to changing women’s role in politics forever. Next time it will be that much easier for one of us to go all the way.
So, it was a fitting finale, when at around 3:49 Mountain Time, Hillary Clinton was the one to propel Barack Obama to the nomination officially. It was a class ending to a grueling battle.
* * * * * *
Hillary Clinton took the stage last night and didn’t waste any time in getting to her mission, the moment where she turned the tables on the media-driven drama to give a wholehearted plea for unity and coming together that could only be ignored by those who never had any intention of listening to Hillary in the first place.
You know, I’m — I’m here tonight as a proud mother, as a proud Democrat… (APPLAUSE)… as a proud senator from New York… (APPLAUSE) … a proud American… (APPLAUSE)… and a proud supporter of Barack Obama.
Oh, but one problem. Was Hillary too good?
Rank-and-file Democrats could hardly have asked for more. Which may actually create a slight problem for Barack Obama. Did Clinton do too well?
That’s always been Hillary’s problem. No matter what she does she’s damned.
Except when someone opens their ears and hears, at least for a moment. Cue Dahlia Lithwick:
The fact that she ran circles around the men tonight reminded me why the glass ceiling with the 18 million cracks in it really is poised to shatter. I can’t recall a woman rocking a convention like that, ever.
That’s because no woman in political history has blown the roof off like Hillary did last night. And, oh, what a catbird seat I had. Doing political analysis before and after the speech, I was skybox center.
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Taylor Marsh is a political analyst, talk radio personality, and author. She can be found online at TaylorMarsh.com.
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19 Comments
1. Ed Wallis:THIS article is supposed to convince me that Hillary was “too good”?!
It doesn’t even substantially inform me of what she said – much less how!
If this is the best Dem supporters can do at writing – or thinking – McCain has a great future in the White House!!!
Aug 27, 2008 - 3:06 am 2. Suzanne Pomeranz:What Hillary did last night was share a bunch of sound bites connected by staged applause. These sound bites are now what Americans will hear ad infinitum from the end of this week until election day…
Thankfully, I live in another country and don’t have cable TV!
Aug 27, 2008 - 4:23 am 3. Stephen Carter:I’ve never been a Hillary-hater. I always believed she was accomplished, articulate, & many of her policies made sense. But her ringing endorsement of Obama ignores reality, ignores the hard-left, anti-military, anti-business, ashamed-to-be-American ethos Obama projects.
Aug 27, 2008 - 4:37 am 4. RustyG:Re Obama, I really can’t imagine what Democrats are thinking. How can they believe he won’t be a disaster for the economy, a defeat for the vital, credible ongoing response to Terror, ringingly successful thus far under Bush, an abandonment of the necessary seeding of the Arab Middle East with democracy and a chance at repudiating the creeping ideology of terror. Obama is clueless on all this. At least Senator Clinton got it, and acted on it, and crafted policies pertinent to it. Obama would be vastly worse than Carter, he’d the worst, most pompous, insecure, ineffective President ever.
Does this mean Sloe Joe is not a good choice anymore? Biden’s speech I’m sure will be better. As I type this Joe and his staff are researching every great political speech ever given to see which would be the best to plagerize.
If Marsh is this excited about the Hillary just imagine the verbage after she touches the garment of The One this week.
Aug 27, 2008 - 5:17 am 5. Ed Wallis:To “RustyG”:
Deval Patrick/Neil Kinnock ‘08!!!
heh.
Aug 27, 2008 - 5:57 am 6. No Runny Eggs » Blog Archive » The Morning Scramble, Part 1 (Death of the PUMAs Edition) - 8/27/2008:[...] Taylor Marsh thinks Clinton did too good a job. Not if her goal is to be the 2012 nominee. [...]
Aug 27, 2008 - 7:11 am 7. Taylor Marsh:Actually Ed Wallis, no it’s not. I have no idea why this headline was chosen. The “too good” quote actually is a quote from someone else’s piece. It reveals that Hillary can’t do anything right with some people, even when she stops the show.
Come on RustyG, you can do better than that, I’m sure. Can’t HRC do well, without it having anything to do with Joe Biden.
You all illustrate the primary problem with politics on both sides today. You can’t give someone their due even when it’s earned.
Aug 27, 2008 - 7:44 am 8. jdwill:Too good is right. She was too good for the other Dems there. She took care of business, smacked McCain in collegial but devasting fashion, nailed the parties planks in a blitzkrieg round, and finished up with a resonant call to arms that stirred even this conservatives heart.
I took the time to watch the speech on C-Span without any commentary or cutaways.
The speech could go down like Reagan in 76 and Kennedy in 80 as the ‘one that got away’. Come November, Dems may well be watching this speech (again) and saying “damn!”.
She made all the other speechmakers I’ve seen so far at the convention seem like rumdums.
Aug 27, 2008 - 8:05 am 9. jvon:Actually this seems to be a problem mostly with Obama. Biden was too experienced, too competent. Hillary was too credible.
Maybe the problem isn’t with the other people at all. The real trouble is that only Obama could make Biden look too competent, or Hillary too credible.
Aug 27, 2008 - 8:05 am 10. mike shelton:HRC was magnificent in her presentation in style points, cadence, bringing her audience with her. She was exciting, dramatic, show-stopping. It also made the more knowledgeable delegates remember why she lost. That talent came on display too late. Her campaign was too arrogant, changing modes too late to win.
Aug 27, 2008 - 8:37 am 11. Gina:If this were a convention in the 1960’s or ’50’s,she could have pulled the rabbit of the hat and won at the convention, despite Barack’s momentum. Of course, neither one would have been any more than a delegate in those days.
So, now Obama and the DNC want to hold the roll call away from the main hall, and stop the vote partially through … just in case Hillary does well, which might embarrass Obama and the DNC. This is what happens when a candidate and a party manipulate the process, and try to force a candidate down the throats of the constituents. Obama might have trashed the Clintons, and gotten over 90% of the black vote, but in the process America has been thrown under the bus.
Aug 27, 2008 - 9:02 am 12. justlen:Gina:
So, now Obama and the DNC want to hold the roll call away from the main hall, and stop the vote partially through
You’ve swallowed the puma talking points a little too easily. There will be a full roll call this afternoon.
Aug 27, 2008 - 9:32 am 13. goy:Taylor, I thought Hillary’s address was wonderfully impressive, given the degree of confusion, outrage, resentment and disunity in the DNC these past weeks and the fatal body blows Obama’s been suffering before he’s even been officially nominated. It was one of her best performances. But a performance it was, not honest leadership.
I hate to be the one to bring this up, but if the best “criticism” Hillary can manage regarding the economy and other issues is irrelevant thesis, then despite the mindless applause, I’m not sure all this cheerleading is going to help your unproven, incompetent, too-far-left candidate much in November.
Irrespective of any new Constitutional “social justice” Amendments yet to be passed, the government is not responsible for providing its citizens with health care OR health care insurance any more than it is responsible for providing its citizens with homeowner’s insurance, auto insurance, flood insurance, a house, a job, food, clothing, a car, furniture, a television, a phone, electricity, heat, air conditioning or any of the other necessities of life. An honest leader would pursue the cause of skyrocketing health care costs and deal with that. Hillary is not an honest leader, so she chooses to allow those costs to rise and seeks to apply an anti-solution that has the happy benefit (for her) of extending the power of the federal government. With tyrants it is ever thus. And I would add, neither is McCain honest on this score. They’re both aware that the best way to put the entire population of this country directly under the thumb of government is to take over control of their health care. When that happens, you can kiss any real freedom that may still exist in this country good-bye.
Americans who earn their own living WANT to privatize social security because they want to control their own retirement. They do NOT want to leave their retirement funding up to the partisan whims of a Congress that has shown no concern, under any administration, for the long-term viability of the SSI fund.
Using “ERA” issues to attack McCain on the economy is not something a serious person would entertain. The issues are orthogonal. But like Obama, Hillary is not a serious person, she’s just a socialist.
Back here in reality, the economy is doing amazingly well considering the myriad factors that have conspired to drive it into a recession. And despite the relentless mendacity spewed by the media, most of us likely voters are aware of this.
We haven’t seen a recession since November of 2001. You remember, don’t you? That’s the one that started in 2000 with the precipitous drop in GDP – when growth plummeted from 4.8 to 1.9 percent in the final year of Clinton’s administration, thanks to his policy of surplus-through-hypertaxation. It continued that trend into a true recession by April of 2001 (while the government was still operating under the Clinton budget). Thanks to refreshingly enlightened tax policies and economic stimulus when needed, that recession was almost immediately corrected by McCain… oops, I mean President Bush (these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart), and has stayed corrected since. We’ve seen positive economic growth in every quarter of the past seven years.
Even now, we have skyrocketing oil prices facilitated in part by the Pelosi/Reid policies, and which were driven back down by 20% when Bush reversed the executive ban on domestic drilling. We have a suicidal credit banking sector. And we have a Democrat-controlled Congress that has done exactly nothing for two years. With all that – and, oh, maintaining military forces in two foreign countries – the economy is still growing.
Unemployment rates peaked at around 7.3% between 1993 and 2000. Under Bush’s stewardship the peak hasn’t exceeded 6.2%. Even more interestingly, the average unemployment rate – 5.2% – has been identical to the so-called “prosperous” Clinton administration years.
So if Hillary and Obama want to attack McCain on economic policies that were not his own – policies which have been working exceedingly well by any relevant measure – I think a savvy McCain will enjoy having that discussion. Every one of Obama’s other attacks has backfired, big-time. And this would be no different.
And here’s a hint: it’s a safe bet that wannabe-2012-candidate Hillary Clinton is counting on that.
Aug 27, 2008 - 10:29 am 14. Peggy McGilligan:Hillary mentioned education or college (as in pay for) approximately four times. But I just can’t help thinking about H. Ross Perot. In 1992, H. Ross, a Texas billionaire ran a successful third-party candidacy for president. As it turns out, H. Ross’s agenda was to peel enough votes from George H. W. Bush, another Texas billionaire, who also happened to be the incumbent president and hand the election to the Democratic challenger, who happened to be Bill Clinton. H. Ross siphoned off an estimated 20-million votes. Mission accomplished, H. Ross vanished into the ether from whence he sprung, leaving 20-million voters in the lurch. Bill Clinton went on to fulfill many of H. Ross’s more popular proposals, like a balanced budget. But while H. Ross’s motive had been a vendetta, the Clinton’s motives are political. And, on them the lesson of Perot’s displaced minions has not been lost. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said: The only thing new under the sun, is the history you don’t know: http://theseedsof9-11.com
Aug 27, 2008 - 1:07 pm 15. RustyG:Taylor,
I mention Biden because I had never read anything from you before your post extolling the wisdom of the Biden VP pick. I’ll give Hillary her due. She was the only VP choice that could have saved the sinking Obama ship, but the libs screwed that pooch too. I found it ironic that you were singing Hill’s praises with that in mind.
Stay tuned. With McCain’s penchant for poking us conservatives in the eye, he could easily throw Barry a life raft!
Aug 27, 2008 - 2:31 pm 16. J:Hillary proved to me why I voted for her.
Her graciousness also however highlights the lack of graciousness, the chiding by Obama and the fact that he omitted her from the ticket like a boy who cannot share the limelight with one too strong.
I want to like Obama but Hillary proves every time she was the preferable candidate. Informed, gracious, strong and resilent.
Aug 27, 2008 - 4:16 pm 17. TexEd:And moreover, it shows me the sexism we have seen in the media, in the tacit silent approval of Howard Dean. Dean remained silent during so much sexist language during primary season insuring his choice benefits not granted others. He only admitted the sexism the day it was over. Shame on Howard Dean who I once viewed as a hope for the party but only showed its still an old boys club led by men who must have it their way
I was watching MSNBC at about 7:40 PM on Wednesday. They showed Michelle Obama from the back talking to an animated white guy. He was gesturing with both hands and then gave her something which she accepted. They went to Chris Mathews. Was it an envelope full of cash? It sure looked like it to me. Does anyone have a Tivo of what happened?
Aug 27, 2008 - 5:44 pm 18. Bullfrog:“…47 million people without health insurance…” – talk about “cooking the books; I don’t suppose she would be willing to elaborate on that number? Probably not, since the REAL number of people who want health insurance but are unable, is really closer to 10%. The rest are illegal aliens and people who opt out, even though they can afford it.
“…privatize Social Security…” – What? Give me more control over MY money? Yes please! Does anyone really think Democrats are against making Social Security private because they are “looking out for the ‘little guy’?”
As has been stated, Hillary, and her husband, have no intention of letting Obama win this election because they know the only chance she has in 2012 is against an incumbent Republican Prez. They will be back…
Aug 27, 2008 - 9:27 pm 19. Bullfrog:Oops, meant “10 million” people in my last comment, not “10%”.
Aug 27, 2008 - 9:29 pm