Hillary Clinton stirs up delegates
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Delegates pledged to Clinton were still unsure how to proceed in today’s roll call.
DENVER (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton had a simple message Tuesday for her still loyal supporters: This election isn’t about her any more.
The former first lady ceded the nomination that was almost hers in a prime-time speech to Democratic delegates, closing another chapter in a long, improbable political career that took her from supportive spouse to political powerhouse.
She was warmly embraced by delegates split between her and Barack Obama in the primary. Any who were still angry over her loss were drowned out in applause when she opened her speech by declaring herself “a proud supporter of Barack Obama.”
She exhorted her backers to remember who was most important in this campaign.
“I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?” she said. She urged them instead to remember Marines who have served their country, single mothers, families barely getting by on minimum wage and other struggling Americans.
All the Clintons, a longtime royal family of Democratic politics, were on hand to pass the torch to Obama. Clinton was introduced by her daughter, Chelsea, while her husband watched from a box seat above the Arkansas delegation.
Clinton spoke on the eve of the delegate roll call in which both she and Obama will be nominated for president. But under a deal between the two camps, only some delegates will get the opportunity to cast a historic vote for either a woman or a black man before the split decision will be cut off in favor of unanimous consent for Obama.
But at the 11th hour, many details were unclear — which states would get a chance to vote, whether Clinton herself would cut it off in acclamation for Obama and if floor demonstrations would be tolerated.
The deal-making and lack of direction left Clinton supporters frustrated.
“Just tell me what you want me to do,” Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said, throwing up his hands and rolling his eyes in an Associated Press interview. Nutter, who had campaigned for Clinton during the Pennsylvania primary, later said he would support Obama in a roll call vote.
Even some of Clinton’s most loyal allies — New York Democrats — are increasingly frustrated by the silence from her and her advisers on how to proceed. New York delegates would likely play a key role in the roll call salute to Clinton but they still have no idea what it is they are supposed to do, according to several Democrats who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are supposed to be publicly backing Clinton.
Clinton fueled confusion by refusing to publicly instruct her delegates how to vote, though she said she’ll back Obama when the time comes. She planned to meet with her delegates today.
In the prime-time address, the former first lady added, “We don’t have a moment to lose or a vote to spare.”
The packed convention floor became a sea of white “Hillary” signs as the New York senator strode to the podium, and thousands of Democrats cheered as she took a pre-speech sip of water.
Calling herself a “proud supporter of Barack Obama, she dismissed Republican John McCain with a few choice words.
“No way. No how. No McCain,” she said as the hall erupted in cheers.
“We don’t need four more years ... of the last eight years,” she added.
Like other failed candidates at conventions past, Clinton recalled her own quest for the White House.
“You taught me so much, you made me laugh and ... you even made me cry,” she said to supporters in the Pepsi Center and millions more watching on nationwide television.
“You allowed me to become part of your lives, and you became part of mine.”
“I want you to ask yourselves, ‘Were you in this campaign just for me?’” she asked.