DNC Night 2

Maggie says:
Whoopee, another night of politics!

So tonight, we have the all-important Hillary Clinton speech and a keynote from Mark Warner. As I see it, Clinton needs to strongly and genuinely endorse Obama in the context of how damaging McCain will be for the country. Warner needs to deliver a pointed, all-fronts-attack on McCain that puts us on the offense.

The context of Clinton's speech is, of course, her supporters who are still not in the Obama camp. I have so little patience for this point of view. The NPR piece this morning that spotlighted a couple of these women was absurd. Better than I could, here's Eric Alterman:

Personally, I think that people who are "still angry" about Hillary Clinton and are considering "withholding their support" from Obama are moral and political idiots in exactly the same vein as those people who voted for Ralph Nader in swing states in 2000 were. More so, actually. The Democrats had a primary, and Obama won it fair and square. He didn't cheat. He didn't do any of the things that Hillary Clinton diehards are are so angry about. He just won and she lost. That's how these things are supposed to work.

These Hillary diehards act as if they are making some sort of point, but the only point they are making is that they would prefer to see John McCain be President--and run a government that is opposed to everything they say they favor (here's where the Nader comparison comes in) because they think politics is a form of therapy rather than a matter of compromise, coalition and, ultimately, victorious combination.

If you talk to one of these people for more than two minutes, they immediately cease to make any sense. But the press doesn't talk to them for more than two minutes at a time because all they need is that one self-serving, conflict-building quote to give them what they need to support their big--and, right now, virtually only--story line.

I think Hillary Clinton will deliver tonight. She's got to, and she knows it. I still want to believe that she is better than the Mark Penn politics that defined her campaign. Whether or not tonight's speech will be enough for these supposed "diehards," time will tell. So will my concern for whether or not they join us in November.