Well, it appears that Clinton was NOT trying to extort herself into the VP slot as it appeared that she might be. It may well be that she legitimately has no real interest in being VP.

There are a couple of caveats here though.

1. Her behavior was clearly delusional if she wasn't angling for the VP slot. The only other explanation for her behavior Tuesday night is that she honestly could not see what everyone else had known since Indiana and North Carolina. She would have to have completely misread the Washington powers who were giving her time to formulate a graceful exit and have genuinely believed that they were going to fall in behind her even after Obama crossed the finish line. While this means that her further stirring the radical fringe of her supporters with fuzzy math was not malicious, it is still somewhat disturbing that she could have been so out of touch.

2. Her decision to suspend, rather than end, her campaign is troublesome. The only major policy difference that emerged during the last 16 months was over whether adults would be mandated to sign up for universal health care. This is the kind of detail that Senator Clinton would be able to influence much more than former candidate Clinton. Gov. Ed Rendell, who was so vocally pro-Clinton/anti-Obama during the campaign that I began to dislike him said it best. "There's no bargaining. You don't bargain with the Presidential nominee. Even if you're Hillary Clinton and you have 18 million votes, you don't bargain." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/04/rangel-tells-clinton-dont_n_105259.html) Despite the chorus of voices telling her this, she still doesn't seem to get it. You can't call for unity on the one hand and, as the losing candidate, try to leverage "your supporters" on the other. She needs to go one step further and drop out of the race.

I am hoping that this will become apparent to Senator Clinton between now and Saturday and she will make the right decision. I am hoping that I will never have to write anything negative about Clinton or her actions here again. It is time for ALL of us to get over the divisions and move on to victory in November.

But, I must stress that that starts with full acceptance of Barrack Obama as the sole presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party and full acceptance of his right as such to choose whomever he wants as his VP nominee. That also means that there must be FULL acceptance of the fact that Hillary Clinton LOST the race for the Democratic Party nomination. There must be full acceptance that she doesn't have any cards left to play and is owed no more than John Edwards, Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich. Yes, she came closer than they did, but she lost, just like they did.

Despite the aspects of her campaign that turned so many of us off, we, the vocal Obama supporters, have an obligation to put it behind us too. Even if Clinton blunders again Saturday, we know that the bargaining power she might think she has exists only in her mind and the minds of her most EXTREME supporters, that it is finally over, whether Clinton admits it or not. There is no need to beat a dead horse. Joan Walsh may be praising racists and telling her blog readers two years from now that Hillary should have won. Let her. She seems to get off on baiting Obama supporters, but we owe it to our candidate and our party to not take the bait.

The tone of this letter can not be described as totally positive, I admit. I laid out some hard facts that Clinton supporters WILL have to accept if they truly believe in what Clinton says she stands for. BUT, it will be really hard for them to do so if Obama supports continue to be antagonistic. Our candidate won, we don't have to justify it or defend it. If Hillary, or pro-Hillary extremists want to pretend that they still have some secret power over Obama, let them. Trying to explain it will just anger them further. We need to treat them respectfully and focus on November. If we do that, they will get on board or get left behind. Obama IS the nominee. Any women who truly believe in the causes that Hillary and Obama BOTH believe in will support Obama if we, the vocal Obama supporters, don't give them a reason not to. The racists and the extremist fringe of Hillary supporters never will. Obama did not display a tiny trace of sexism in his campaign and once the dust settles the reasonable Clinton supporters will realize it. The unreasonable ones, by definition, can't be reasoned with, so only harm can come from trying.

How much harm can Obama supporters do? One only need look to the fringe Hillary supporters for the answer. I don't think that Hillary was ever a good VP choice for Obama, but the numbers all but forced her onto the list. While the sheer number of supporters she had might have put Clinton on the list, the fact that the fringe supporters, like Lanny Davis, have tried to FORCE Obama to pick her has backfired. Now, if Obama were to pick Clinton, he would be attacked for showing weakness in bowing to the outside pressure. Davis has all but removed Clinton's name from the list with his ill-advised pro-Clinton actions. We need to make sure that we don't behave in counterproductive ways when defending our candidate. We need to show the kind of grace towards Hillary supporters (racists excluded, of course- they aren't worth commenting on) that Obama himself showed to Hillary Tuesday night.

The Pet Goat