Charles Adler Blog

• Hillary Hits a Home Run in Denver
  Wednesday, August 27, 2008
• Hillary Hits a Home Run in Denver
  by Charles Adler/Aug 27

  It's been a number of years since I have watched a speech where I felt myself morphing into my FAVORITE RADIO FANTASY, play-by-play broadcaster behind the micropone during Game Seven of the World Series. Last night at the Democratic Party Convention in Denver, it was Hillary Clinton up at bat, and she was swinging for the fences. I imagined the pitcher was Roger Clemens like, tall and powerful, a right arm like a missile launcher. The pitch came in hard and high, but to the Hillary's eye it was bigger than a beach ball and she jack hammered that piece of horse hide right OUT of the PARK.

  I want to give you the paragraph from the speech that will always stick in my mind as the strong set of visuals that connects the modern post-FDR Democratic party to its raison d'etre which in a nutshell would be that Government is primarily about providing a safety net for people, programs like Social Security, what we in Canada call Old Age Pension, Medicare, which in the USA is available to seniors, Medicaid, available to the poor. These Safety Net ideas were all initiated by Democrats. Now in this most recent campaign, the left of centre so called Progressives in the Democratic Party who were very much for Barack Obama had been saying that Clinton was too self-absorbed, self-centred, making the campaign about her.
  But last night Hillary Clinton put the nutcracker to that acorn with the following words:

  "I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism, didn't have health insurance and discovered she had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head painted with my name on it and asked me to fight for healthcare.

  I will always remember the young man in a Marine Corps t-shirt who waited months for medical care and said to me: "Take care of my buddies; a lot of them are still over there … and then will you please help take care of me?"

  I will always remember the boy who told me his mom worked for the minimum wage and that her employer had cut her hours. He said he just didn't know what his family was going to do."

  Hillary Clinton then tried to build the bridge to Obama, to say to her supporters, if you were with me, you now need to be with him. She told the crowd that if they had been loyal to her campaign, it had to be because what she stood for and who she fought for. "I want you to ask yourselves," she said. "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 boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?" What was very visible at the Denver convention last night were the Hillary people, the most loyal of whom were women whose hearts were conquered by these words.

  "My mother was born before women could vote. But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for president. This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up. How do we give this country back to them? By following the example of a brave New Yorker, a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad. And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice. If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If they're shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going. Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going. I've seen it in you. I've seen it in our teachers and firefighters, nurses and police officers, small business owners and union workers, the men and women of our military - you always keep going. We are Americans. We're not big on quitting."

  Hillary Clinton may not be able to deliver the eighteen million people who voted for her in the Democratic Primary to Barack Obama and her speech may not move the needle much for him. Last night she didn't offer a personal endorsement of Obama. Never discussed her connection to him in personal terms. If she had it would have been very contrived. What she delivered was her reasons for being a Democrat and a political endorsement of this year's standard bearer. It was the kind of political salute that a soldier gives the commanding officer. Between now and November, Obama is that Commander. If he wins, he is Commander-in-Chief of the United States and the Democratic Party for at least 4 years.

  But, he may lose. And if he does, then four years from now we are talking about a 2012 campaign pitting a Republican incumbent against a Democratic challenger and last night Hillary Clinton went as far as she could to become that challenger. Four years from now many of us will look back to the speech Hillary Clinton gave in Denver in August of 2008. To some the speech marked the conclusion of her very long campaign for this year's election. But to others it marked the beginning of her 2012 campaign should Obama falter and fade.

  I'm Charles Adler

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