Dee Savoy

I watched Hillary Clinton give her concession speech this morning, and have to admit I was quite moved. At one time, I was a staunch supporter of hers, salivating over the chance for the first woman to make it to the White House as something other than the president’s missus. But after some of Clinton’s missteps, foibles and, let’s face it, underhandedness, I switched camps.

Then, as the pundits expounded before Hillary took the podium, i wondered what she would say. According to the pundits, Clinton needed to give on helluva speech, spoken on just the right note, to start to mend the Democratic party in time to win in November. She needed, as I think Tim Russert put it, to, not only concede, but to endorse Obama in a way that her constituency wouldn’t refuse to vote at all or defect to the McCain camp out of spite.

I wondered if Clinton had that much graciousness in her. I half expected her to fall short of the goal for her speech, but the more she spoke, the more impressed I became. She really made a decent call for her supporters to help elect Obama, if only to make sure there wasn’t another Republican in the Oval Office.

After a bit of a plug for herself and her supporters for coming so far, Clinton exhorted her supporters to help Barack Obama become the next president of the United States.

But to my mind, where she really excelled was in talking about the impact her candidacy has had for women. Thanks to her, the ultimate glass ceiling has been cracked, if not broken. Those are her words, but I believe them, too. If she had stuck with this hopeful message instead of drowning in offensive, quasi and real racial insults and other nonsense, I wonder whether she would have had to make that speech.

Another thing that struck me was her smile. I don’t think I’ve seen another candiate bow out with such elan. In fact I’m sure I remember a few men with great big tears in their eyes (and perhaps running down their faces) when it came time to give up the ghost. So much for women being the weaker sex.

To read more about it, go here. Then again, there’s always this guy.