Good evening,
(applause)
Thank you everyone for coming. I know this has been as long and grueling a process for you as it has been for me. From the bottom of my heart, I offer my thanks. And your country offers its thanks, for your efforts and your inspiring work in both participating in and strengthening the democratic process.
(applause)
First, I must offer both love and gratitude to to my supporters. It is because of your spirit and determination that this race has been so inspiring and captivating.
This has been a long and arduous journey. I know there are probably many people out there who would have liked to have seen me drop out a long time ago. Probably from both sides of the aisle. (crowd laughs)
I would also like to give thanks to those who supported and worked for my opponent and friend Senator Obama. Tonight I called Barack to offer my congratulations, and inform him that I am hereby suspending my campaign for President.
But that isn’t where this story ends. For me or for you.
I’ve run my campaign based on what used to work in this country’s politics. For decades now the prevailing winds have told us that national politics needs to be divisive. In order to get some votes, you have to give up others. And despite what I would have liked to have hoped, I believed that. I bet my path to the White House on the idea that our country isn’t yet ready to move past that.
But in the past few months, a strange thing happened. Senator Obama’s campaign gained traction. The enthusiasm and numbers of his supporters grew, and grew, and finally I had to consider that maybe I was wrong. Maybe this country IS ready to move forward.
It is because of this that I am suspending my campaign for the Presidency. Again, I am grateful to my supporters who have stood by me through thick and thin. To you, I say this : Don’t be disappointed in this result. Your country is ready to stand up tall, to rise above the muck and the pettiness that has polluted our politics for far too long. And it needs your help to make the transition. To make that CHANGE.
If there is to be some good to come out of my misdirected campaign, I hope it is that Democrats are reminded that we can and should fight for what we believe in, and that we should fight hard. Nothing is going to come easy.
In that spirit, I again offer my congratulations to Senator Obama, and offer my full support in helping to stomp some Republican ass come November.
Yes. We. Can!
Good night!
(In the background, Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror plays)
I’m Gonna Make A Change,
For Once In My Life
It’s Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .
I am a sucker for stories of redemption. I know Hillary can never fully redeem herself in the eyes of many, but I’d still like her to try, and I think if she can pull something like this off there’s still hope of a healed party come November.
This is as good a dream as any I guess. I doubt Hillary has a gracious bone or moment left in her. Her scorched earth campaign proves it is all about her and the rest of the world be damned. I hate that I have come to the point where I have lost all respect for her. I was never a supporter of hers for the presidency but I did respect her at one time. I now just wish she would go away and I hope like hell she gets primaried and loses in her next senate campaign. This campaign has proven it is past time for the Clintons to be gone.
Yeah, it’s just a dream. I don’t think it will ever happen. Though it would, at this point, be both the right and politically smart thing for her to do.
Remember, even the grinch’s heart grew 3 sizes in one day 🙂
Stories of redemption are nice, however Clinton’s story is more about how the rest of us get fucked due to the hubris of the protagonist. Hitler wanted Germany to be destroyed by the Allies because he could not conceive of a Germany without him in it and running things. Similarly, it looks to me that the Clintons want to see the Democratic Party destroyed if they can’t be the bigDem’s. This is the psychological make-up of the tyrant. Clinton thinks the Democratic Party exists to make her President. If it won’t do that, she’ll burn it down. How, you ask? By doing just what she has been doing. And by acting in such a Liebermanesque fashion of courting Republicans.
Great speech, but its not going to happen – at least not quite like that. Yes Hilary will concede graciously, yes she will offer her support, but no she won’t admit she was wrong because she doesn’t believe she was wrong.
She did what she thought she had to do – the standard Clinton strategy of tacking to the centre, getting moderate/independent votes – and in the process she lost the Democratic heartland. She thought the Dem nomination was in the bag (with her 20 point poll leads) and started fighting the General election too early – and didn’t realise until too late that the progressive left wasn’t going to implode the way it had with Dean. She then had to (quite divisively) try to paint Obama as a black politician – and in the process lost most of the Dem centre as well.
She probably still believes she has the best chance of beating McCain – and in that narrow sense, that it is in the Dems own best interest to nominate her. But when that strategy finally falls apart she will support Obama, and probably quite tirelessly and effectively to.
She is a tragic figure. So arrived too early for a women to have a real chance, and realised too late that yes, the chance was there, but the political centre had shifted left whilst she was busily trying to consolidate support to her right.
Sometimes the window of opportunity is very small, and you don’t get a second chance.
That’s my gut feeling too.
It would take a complete paradigm shift for her, an unlearning of decades worth of her own experience to be able to see that this country has simply moved past this brand of politics (and it’s not like we’re all THAT far past it).
But that’s why it’s the speech I want her to give, and not the speech I think she will give. I do hope that in her concession she finds some way to heal some of the wounds that she’s opened in the past few months. But we shall see.
I did see her admonishing her supporters today to “reconsider” any decision to choose McCain over Obama if it came to that. That’s a start.
Wow – I’d love her if she gave THAT speech.
I feel Hillary is really torn. I think there’s a part of her that would like to do this. But there’s the part of her everyone around her feeds on that is as nasty and selfish as can be. The one that wins is the one that gets fed the most.