MSN has the story of Hillary’s aides saying she agrees that Obama has enough delegates. The Democrats may soon have their candidate to get behind. From MSN:
Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation’s first female president.
The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City. She will pledge to continue to speak out on issues like health care. But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.
Reactions? Thoughts? Feelings?
Kmareka.com 
This campaign has diminished the respect I had for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Her comments praising J. McCain and her unwillingness to apologize for her role in the war are significant.
She won over many NYers in her generally good work in the Senate. The question is: can she be a good campaigner for Barack Obama? What will she learn from this last year? Will she write another (better?) book?
It takes a village to raise a president.
I really don’t see this as a win. Obama can’t explain away the Reverend’s comments, can’t explain away the comments about American pride along with his wife’s, his unacceptance to put his hand over his heart and lastly, what’s $20 and the price of arugla?
Hillary was ladylike in the beginning and then was clawing to keep the popular vote. A vote she clearly has, but he’s got more Super Delagates. I don’t get it! I am really surprised the Democratic Party didn’t push for Hillary as she will be the one that could have won over McCain.
I was sickened when Bush got in again, just as I feel now – the same knitting needle to my eye feeling.
I didn’t have my respect for HRC diminished because I had none to begin with.
She is,and always has been,an opportunistic,power mad liar.
I supported John McCain in 2000.The hatchet job done by Bush and his gang guaranteed I wouldn’t vote for him(Bush) ever.
I look forward to voting for McCain after a campaign that will hopefully emphasize a difference in ideas rather than a series of personal attacks.
I did support a Democrat for President once-Bob Kerrey of Nebraska.Unfortunately the media smeared him for a decision he had to make in the dark of night under hostile fire with the responsibility for the lives of others under his command.As if the talking heads could ever have an understanding of that.
The idea of the Clinton “team”that resembles organized crime networks in the White House again was too much for me.
Obama would be insane to pick her as VP.His best bet is Jim Webb.
McCain’s is Bobby Jindal.
My husband said that he is sorry that his mother, a proud African-American community leader, did not live to see this day. We saw history tonight. I have hope that we will not remain a divided and fearful nation, but that we can work together to solve our problems and regain respect in the world.
I suspect that many will have an initial reaction of relief that the contrived imbroglio between candidates of much noise and less than apparent substance, as well as an almost Byzantine accumulation of excess baggage, has reached a “possible” conclusion. On the one hand, a superficially interesting candidate, Mr. Obama, has the millstones of the less than satisfactory accumulation of now former (one hopes) friends and supporters that include ranting clergy with unusually skewed world views, former (one hopes) urban terrorists who contrived to kill Americans before 9/11 was a dream of Paradise in Middle Eastern eyes, and a career record of little or no substantive experience or accomplishment of national or international scope. On the contrary side, the last surviving opponent in a Democratic field of unusual candidates, Ms Clinton, rivals Mr. Obama with a more notable set of millstones, her husband, the former playboy President, given to unusual episodes of temper, almost racist comments, and apparently a new found memory of how much fun it was/is to chase the ladies (according to Vanity Fair magazine). Beyond that Ms. Clinton was not immune to marginal and distasteful comments and also seems to have a delusional streak. Apart from her image of herself as a legend (in her own mind), she seems to have tried to out-Gore Gore. She did not claim to invent the internet, or save us from non-existent global catastrophe, but did claim to have brought peace to Northern Ireland, to have been named for the fellow who firs conquered Everest, Edmond Hillary (with his Sherpa guides of course), and to have bravely dodged remorseless and intense sniper fire in Bosnia. One suspects that the Clinton machine folks have a few more aces up their political sleeves awaiting a new stumble or new disaster by Mr. Obama, who seems to have a propensity to trip along the way, perhaps a product of the superficiality of his reord and message. One can never count the Clinton machine out, in any event. Perhaps the political soap opera will continue into a second season.
First, as an active and vocal Clinton supporter, I’d like to congratulate the host(s) and all the other Obama supporters on their candidate’s success. To think that Obama and Clinton would be the last two democratic candidates is especially poignant and emphasizes how far this country has come during my lifetime.
I would like to take this opportunity to express some of my thoughts and feelings after a long, hard-fought campaign. Whether you supported Obama or Clinton, or currently support McCain, these are exciting and historic times. All of us who have stood for and fought for the necessary changes to make more gentle the lives of others need to come together over the coming weeks and months. We cannot waste this transcendent opportunity.
It will take time for us to come together. I can say that some of the more vitriolic comments directed toward Clinton and her supporters will be difficult to forget. I am happy to note that with few exceptions, nearly all of the offensive personal comments appeared on other sites. That is to the credit of Kmareka.com’s hosts and those who participate on this blog. Other sites could take a lesson from Kmareka’s promotion of civility in its discussion and its hospitality of robust debate. Had there been more open discussion and debate, perhaps feelings would not have been rubbed so raw.
It is my hope that our new Obama brethren recognize that he needs Clinton voters. These votes will not automatically accrue to him but in most cases must be earned. This would have been true had the outcome been reversed. Many voters who participated in the democratic primaries were not staunch democrats who would be expected to vote for the eventual nominee no matter who s/he was.
This is especially true of the older, blue collar, lunch-bucket white male voters who inhabit the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Kentucky, etc. These voters aren’t the racists they are sometimes portrayed by effete media types. These are people who struggle every day against forces beyond their control and who worry whether they will be able to provide for their families. They worry about the future of their children. And they wonder who stands for and with them. Obama needs to connect with these voters, something he hasn’t shown much ability to do so far. I hope that he doesn’t heed the rubbish that passes for advice/analysis from some in his campaign about not “needing� these citizens’ support.
Make no mistake, many women are angry. They are angry about the way the felt Clinton was treated by her male opponents and the media in general. Whether the Obama folks think this anger is fabricated or unmerited is beside the point – it’s real and must be addressed by the candidate. On this issue, I stand by my column last week in the Herald.
At the time that I write this post, forty years ago I was watching TV to get the results of the California primary. Robert Kennedy and Gene McCarthy (and Hubert Humphrey in the background) were locked in a tough battle for the Democratic nomination. Shortly after midnight, at around 1:30 a.m. the election was called for RFK. A couple of hours later, I received a phone call from a fellow RFK campaigner giving me the terrible news of the events at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Kennedy would live for only a few hours and with his death died the last best hope of America. It’s my view that the history of the past forty years was changed for the worse by the events in the kitchen of that hotel. It is in memory of that campaign and all that has transpired since that I recall the words spoken by RFK on the Day of Affirmation in South Africa, 1966. Challenging the students at the University of Cape Town to work to tear down the wall of apartheid, he sought to encourage them when he said:
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.�
If each of us who were political opponents a short while ago can stand together to send forth our tiny ripples of hope, during and especially after this election no matter the outcome, we can sweep down the wall of oppression borne of senseless war and economic injustice. By standing together, we will be worthy of continuing a journey interrupted forty years ago.
Geoff,
A very thoughtful post. In early March you vowed to support Sen. Obama if indeed he outlasted Sen. Clinton in this historic battle and I never doubted that you would be true to your word. I agree that there are wounds to be healed and fences to be mended within the party before the fall’s general election. Forty years ago I saw my grandfather cry for the first time when Bobby was killed. He noticed that I was watching him and took me out on to his porch to talk, never bothering to hide the tears. He told me that he was worried about the direction that our country was headed in and that his staunch support of Bobby had nothing to do with the fact that my family were Massachusetts democrats, it was because Bobby Kennedy offered us “hope”.
One suspects there are differences with disinctions, even in political candidates that are sometimes blurred by history. This usually happens as frustrated folks look for any spark of new leadership. Yet history is there and cannot be denied.
While a graduate student in Minnesota, I was fortunate to have met Mr. Humphrey (“Hubey”) and Mr. McCarthy (“Clean Gene”), as well, mostly because a lady I liked worked for the economist Walter Heller (previous Chair of JFK’s and Lyndon Johnson’s Council of Economic Advisors). Mr. Heller was constantly asked for advice by all the progressive Democratic candidates. Robert Kennedy relied on Mr. Galbreath of Harvard, I believe.
I make no pretense of political savy or “higher political motives” at the time (I was more interested in the lady), but I found Mr. Humphrey and Mr. McCarthy (and Mr. Heller, the author of the JFK tax cut by the way) enormously intelligent, unpretentious and ethical individuals with real depth and ability, and experience base not seen in most of the current candidates of either party. Mr. Nader is more a gadfly than a serious candidate although he will cost the Democrats 1-2% and Mr. Barr has marginalized himself with the Libertarians.
History has clouded much of the past with a selective veil. Most chose not to recall the disaster of the Kennedy Presidency: Bay of Pigs, missiles in Cuba because nasty Mr. Kruschev ran all over Mr. Kennedy when they first met; the entrance into Viet nam as a player; the sexual mess that even included an endless series of dangerous encounters, even the mistress of a Chicago mobster; connections with the mob to shoot, blow up or poison Mr. Castro: the death of President Diem; the lies about Mr. kennedy’s health and “medications” and more. Most forget Robert Kennedy’s association with the nasty Joe McCarthy and the hunt for “Reds,” or his wiretapping of Martin Luther King, his struggle with the dossiers of J.Edgar Hoover, and his chasing after Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters and more.
One suspects that a need for icons colors our view of reality and ignores the teachings of history. As Clarence Darrow remarked: “History repeats itself. That’s the damn problem with history.” I will not remind anyone of the historic millstones about the necks of Ms Clinton or Mr. Obama. I do suspect that Mr. Obama, now in command of the playing field, and his advisors, will be concerned about those Ms Clinton brings to the table. First and most important is the fact that she can never be anything other than “Billary” simply because of that shared and at times “difficult” history. This is not because of any lack of ability on her part, or more significantly an inner desire for recognition, but simply a fact of the shared history. One must doubt that Mr. Obama would want the Clinton millstone to be a drag on his difficult campaign against an experienced and well based opponent such as Mr. McCain.