Saturday, June 7, 2008

Live Blogging--Hillary's Speech

so far she has not made mention of Obama. she is talking to her supporters. where is this going? OK, she should acknowledge them but she had better get to the point soon ...

OK here she goes. Saying they should help elect Barack Obama...

And people are cheering! (mostly.)

Good for you, Hillary.

The Democratic Party is a Family. Kumbaya...

cheering about health care now. well, that IS her passion. cheering for women's and gay rights. yay.

talking about the last 40 years now... giving the nod to Bill. (emphasizing the Clinton brand? or truly supporting the party? hmmm.)

now she's saying Yes, We Can. which would be really cool if she hadn't co-opted/made fun of the slogan with Yes, We Will during her campaign. oh well.

she seems down. I can only imagine how hard this is for her, the kind of stomach it takes for her to do this now.

WTF! a test of the emergency alert system on tv NOW? as Mr Slave on South Park would say, Jesuss Christ!

whatever she said, more cheers.

a 'personal note' about being a woman candidate...addressing sexism. huge ovation. making an excellent point about the historic aspect of her race; it will hereafter be "unremarkable" for a woman to win primaries. now she's smiling. talking about the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.

all very significant, but does it take away from the idea of getting behind Obama? an impassioned speech, but is it self-serving at this particular moment to talk about paving the way for a woman to be president? it emphasizes future elections, not this one. or is she arguing to be VP ? hmmmmmmmmmmm

clever segue into supporting Obama --for now. she is definitely making a pitch for 2012, her right to do, of course. but I hoped for more about what Obama and the party need to do NOW.

she emphasizes the need for another Democratic president, but it seems as a kind of stop gap measure. oh well. that's probably the best one could hope for under the circumstances. not a rousing endorsement of him, but asking the crowd to follow her to vote for him. very interesting.

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the pundits on msnbc are praising her to the hilt. chris matthews called the speech "splendid". if he and Olbermann and Russert think this will be a huge help to Obama, who am I to parse?

2 comments:

Anne McCrady said...

I am at the Texas Democratic State Convention where we got to see the first part of Hillary's speech on the big screen but then lost our feed. Here in a room of 12,000 people who split the delegate vote 42 Clinton/58 Obama, there were many who are having a hard time letting go of our dreams of a woman president. We have pledged to unite, and will, but women and traditional Democrats will need to find a place for our dreams within Obama's family.

Maryanne Stahl said...

I understand. I too share that dream (though I let it--temporarily--go in favor of what I consider the greater good.)

I admit that perhaps I have not given enough thought to the older women who had hoped to see this dream realized within their lifetime, to the great disappointment they are experiencing.

thank you for your comments.