Hillary Has Done A Great Job To Strengthen The Democratic Party

Sure, she has some psychotic supporters and some naive supporters. But she has put up a stupendous and admirable fight. Even if my skin crawled every time I was subjected to whining on cable TV by the hideous likes of Lanny Davis, Terry McCauliffe and that Icky person, Hillary has inspired millions of Americans in every demographic group and in every region. My support for Obama was never an anti-Hillary statement-- even if I detest her horribly corrupt advisors (probably almost as corrupt as McCain's)-- and, in fact, there were two major factors they nearly kept me from endorsing Obama. One is that, though on the whole, they both have moderately progressive voting records, Hillary's is consistently-- if not gigantically-- better than Obama's.

The other reason is harder to quantify. Hillary-without-the-advisors could have been one of the most inspiring political stories in American history, the country's first-- and long overdue-- woman president. The symbolism was powerful enough for me to almost look the other way on McAuliffe, Davis, Icky and the rest of the monsters she surrounded herself with. The shattering of the ultimate glass ceiling is, in itself, something so powerful and such an ultimate good, that it nearly negated-- for me-- her vote to support Bush's attack against Iraq. There is no way to know what Obama would have done were he in the Senate. Congressional Democrats were split on this vote. Most Democrats in the House voted against war; most in the Senate (including Clinton) voted for war, showing colossal, and possibly fatal, bad judgment.

Today we hear that the Clinton campaign has sent pink slips to numerous staffers and that they're meeting in New York tomorrow to plan out the endgame. The least palatable and most corrupt of her senior advisors want to fight it out to the end regardless of how much harm it will do to Democrats and no matter how helpful it will be for McCain. For me a wonderful ending would be for Lanny Davis to become an official McCain surrogate as Democrats rally around Obama. Serious Democrats who have believed in Hillary have told her it's time to turn her tremendous energy and talent towards making the general election a blow-out for Democrats up and down the ticket.

Obama will need Hillary and, unlike Gore (who, after all, preferred Joe Lieberman), will seek to use Bill Clinton to help Democrats retake the White House. On paper it looks like an easy job. But Rove isn't in prison-- let alone solitary confinement-- so we can be sure it will be a hard fought campaign. And make no mistake: Team Bush is running the show. McCain is tired, old and incapable of raising any money. Bush is bringing in all the money and its all going to the RNC, a criminal organization dedicated to using every dirty trick they can dig up. They have hired Rove, Jr., Tim Griffin, to lead an anti-Obama effort, despite any tepid McCain posturings about a "clean campaign." CIA spy Larry Johnson is already circulating some kind of racist red-meat-for-the-brain-dead tape targeting Michelle Obama.

Obama supporters owe Hillary a lot for the inspiration and leadership she has provided during the campaign. There's no reason to believe she won't be as energetic and powerful between now and November... and beyond.