Clinton Endorses; I Exhale

For now. She said everything that she and her Democratic colleagues/supporters knew she must: that she's indefinitely suspending her campaign, the need to now get behind Obama and work towards the general election, etc.; she even added a congratulatory banner and link to the Obama website on her own. To have done any less would not only have hurt Obama's chances and widened the troublesome schisms within the party, but would also have hurt her own career and any future presidential/other ambitions she might still harbor.

She even addressed the historic nature of her achievements as a woman running for the presidency, and it's right that she did; she has made history and her accomplishments have surely helped to pave the way for a female president in the relatively near future. Both campaigns agreed that this should be her day and it was. My biggest concern about the aftermath of this whole affair is how much of what her campaign said and did during the primary will now be picked up and run with during the general; she did a lot of the right's dirty work for them and then gift wrapped it in tidy little media clips.

Now, is she privately hoping that Obama fails, leaving the 2012 race an option for herself? I would guess yes, based solely on her words and actions to date. If this primary has taught us nothing else, it's that her ambitions and ego know no bounds and that she would happily do whatever it takes to win more power and prestige for herself. Yes, she's a woman, but she's a Clinton first and foremost.

At this point however, it's fairly moot; the primary race is finally, definitively over, and the real contest can now begin. I'm looking forward to what could actually be some rousing and substantive, issue-oriented debates between Obama and McCain over the next several months. For now, cue the commentators and pundits spending the rest of their airtime up until the conventions constantly debating and speculating about each of the nominees' VP picks. Here we go...