I wrote earlier that Hillary Clinton needs to eviscerate John McCain. She obviously did not take up all of my suggestions, but she certainly made it abundantly clear that nobody who remotely supported her in the primary could, in good faith, support John McCain. She tied her entire agenda to Obama’s and declared that the fate of the nation rested on Obama’s election to the Presidency.
Some people have chided her for talking so little about Obama and so much about herself. But I think the real story was the very public repudiation of the notion that Clinton voters would go to McCain. Of course she talked mostly about herself and her agenda. To do otherwise would have been fake.
More importantly, she tied her own agenda to the Democratic Party as a whole. By explicitly rejecting the notion that her campaign was about herself, she reminded her most devout supporters of the larger stakes in this election.
And her line about McCain and Bush being twins too hard to tell about was pithy and perfect.
No doubt many Clinton supporters will still need to be convinced to vote for Obama. But the first step – removing McCain as a viable alternative – was accomplished tonight. The next two nights will help Barack Obama convince those committed Clinton supporters that he really does have the values and capabilities to carry out the agenda Clinton spelled out tonight. These hardcore supporters may never truly embrace Obama. But they will at least be set up to vote for him. And that was the point of tonight’s speech. You can still love and admire Hillary Clinton and vote for Barack Obama in November.