Everyone wondered what Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's farewell would sound like as she prepared to deliver her "exit" speech. Political commentators and democratic supporters of Senator Obama clearly labeled her an Alpha Fee Bee over not accepting her opponent's victory earlier in the week, as this would have meant her defeat. Expecting an "honorable" and traditionally "feminine" concession, most expected her to graciously accept her fate.
Instead, this Ultimate Alpha Fee planned an outstanding exit strategy, of which we can only see the tip of the iceberg and yet intuitively wonder about the iceberg beneath. A party of thousands at the National Building Museum in Washington DC (CNN News), her loyal followers continued to be inspired by the smart, thoughtful, and powerful grip of her situation. The first part of her speech conveyed the strong message that characterized her campaign. She was eloquent and passionate, strong and engaging.
She then conceded the race to Senator Obama. There was little passion in her endorsement, but a sense of duty and responsibility were obvious in her speech. Her voice became more monotonous, with fewer smiles and yet, her Alpha Fee nature prevailed as she endorsed her opponent and invited her supporters to endorse him too.
Although she urged her supporters to endorse Obama, make no mistake: this Ultimate Alpha Fee made it very clear that she is the leader of the eighteen million voters who have supported her and followed her over these months. She made it very clear that she will continue to embrace the values that guided her to lead as well as her desire to make sure these same values will survive beyond her personal losses or gains. One thing is granted, we can rest assured she won't cease to surprise us over the months to come.
Although I've always
Although I've always preferred that Obama win the nomination -- because, among other factors, he represents a minority (black males) that is considerably more disadvantaged and disenfranchised than either women, or especially white women, and I think the vitriolic hatred of her among Republicans bodes ill for the prospects of restoring a more bipartisan spirit to the workings of Washington -- it really wasn't until her second invocation of the Kennedy assassination that I realized that I simply could not vote for her in the (by then) virtually impossible event she won the nomination, and that I would either not vote in the national election or vote of Nader (if he's still running).
However, I think the egregious delay in Clinton's official acceptance of Obama's winning the nomination raises additional and more substantial questions about her judgment as a political leader. For many weeks it has been obvious that she had virtually no chance of winning the nomination. Shouldn't she long ago have prepared a magnanimous concession speech unambiguously encouraging a shift of focus on the part of her supporters to Obama and the larger interests of the Democractic Party?
The only reasonable explanations for why she didn't do so must, I think, crucially invoke the influence of unsavory selfish and self-aggrandizing motivational factors at odds with the sort of judgment we should hope for in a leader of such importance as the President.
So, setting aside questions that have been raised about the service she performs as a role model for women (the ambiguity of which, I think, is well reflected in the generational divide in support for her among female voters), simply focusing on some of the decisions she's made in the conduct and conclusion of her campaign is, for me, cause enough for considerable relief that she didn't win the nomination.