Hillary took her speech last night to speak for the 18 million people who've supported, campaigned for her and care passionately about her goals. If you take a look at the segment of the speech "What does Hillary want?," it expresses to a tee why I've cared so much about her campaign. It's not about her being the first woman or him being the first African American. It's about those progressive liberal policies that I truly believe in and yes, I am saddened by the fact that with Hillary exiting the race, so goe sthe hopes for truly universal healthcare, aggressive foreclosure prevention policy, and a foreign policy based on aggressive diplomacy.

Obama folks were so angry she didn't concede last night that they couldn't even acknowledge the obvious - there is much common ground in her speech with her and Obama - much more so than McCain.

And Hillary folks were angry because Obama and his campaign would not give Hillary the space to give Hillary and her supporters one night to celebrate her campaign before moving in to the next phase of the election. I hate to use Jesse Jackson as a reference for democratic primary candidates since that would make me a racist, but I do not recall him conceding the race to Dukakis in 1988 before the convention precisely because he wanted influence on the issues of the party platform. Obama's policies can use some progressive liberal influence. We have great hopes of expanding the democratic margins in the House and Senate. Now is the not the time to be safe and timid with our economic policies. If there was ever a time to achieve truly universal healthcare a presidential goal, it is NOW.

In the spirit of unifying the party had I been Obama's campaign, I would have let the voters speak last night in SD & MT rather than pressuring super dels to put him over the top before voting had ended. I would have given Hillary one speech to her supporters to thank them for their dedication to her campaign. I would have taken the Clinton campaign at their word that they were NOT conceding Tuesday night. I would have scheduled this victory rally jointly with Senator Clinton conceding to the delegate lead to him publicly in a campaign rally like last night. THAT would have been a move towards party unity. I regret that is not the way it played out.

I will say this for Obama - his campaign knows how to play harball and has done it to stunning effect. They've demonstrated the Rovian skill to smear and slur and attack without appearing to get their hands dirty (who me sending out memos about the Clinton's being a racist? We would never push the RFK assasination story except in memos to the press! What's in those tax returns?!?!?!) That bodes well for November in that perhaps they can slur McCain as well (he's a nutjob! what's the deal with that black baby! he's senile! his time in captivity made him psycho and not likeable enough!), but in the meantime has left many Hillary supporters angry that the candidate we believed could win and bring the best progressive policies to the table was being unfairly attacked not on substance or policies but on is she likeable enough and is she member of the Klan. The way she has been treated by the Obama campaign and the media has been appalling.

Obviously time is necessary to heal the breach and move forward to November, but I would ask the Obama supporters to go back and take a look at her actual speech rather than just continuing to attack Hillary over and over again which I can say with conviction will just continue to deepen the divides in the Democratic party. Isn't what Hillary wants what we all want?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/us/politics/03text-clinton.html