Did She Do Enough?

Rarely is one night of a convention handed over to the runner-up.

For “catharsis.”

Last night, Hillary Clinton said all the right words and sounded all the right notes.  But will it make a difference?

On the Monday before the Convention, I was on a talk show panel previewing the Democratic Convention.  Caller after caller to the program were angry Hillary voters who said they would vote for McCain.  When pushed, they had no rational reason, other than that Hillary lost, very much like the pro-choice Hillary supporter the McCain team put on television. 

McCain’s team brought a self-professed “proud Hillary Clinton Democrat” to Denver for the convention so that she could profess her support for McCain at a press event.  But then when asked how as a pro-choice woman she could support someone who wanted to take away a woman’s right to choose, she insisted that McCain does not want to overturn Roe v. Wade, completely contrary to the position McCain has taken in this campaign. 

So did Hillary do enough last night?

Time will tell.

Her speech brought the proper focus – this election is about four more years of Bush-McCain.  With this focus, most of those Hillary voters will come home. But the time and money spent bringing them home is energy and resources the Obama team would much rather spend elsewhere.

But there’s also still another part to this story: President Clinton speaks tonight.  And his remarks will be watched as closely as were hers.  During the primary, it was often his discordant voice that created rifts between the two candidates and campaigns

His speech is unlikely to directly confront President Bush; what he does say will either continue the drive toward unity or blockade it.

Posted by Bernie Campbell on Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Permalink: Did She Do Enough?