Hillary hits a home run

Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention was right on target, including pretty much everything she needed to say. The most important part was when she asked her die-hard supporters what the rest of us have wanted to say for several months:

"I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that young boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?" [CNN]

Part of me keeps asking: "wait, isn't this what anyone else in her position would have been saying for the last two months, instead of letting this whole rift fester?" Can you imagine how the party and the media would have treated Obama if he had come in second and acted the same way? As Ben Smith noted, the negativity coming from the Clinton camp and its surrogates in the days leading up to the speech made it a "study in the virtue of low expectations."

But whether or not one thinks Clinton should have handled the last two months differently, she deserves credit for a great speech last night. And after all, the next two months are much more important than the last two. If she and Bill keep fighting for the Obama-Biden ticket the way she did last night, all of the strife will be forgotten, and their roles among the Democratic Party's leadership will be restored.