I wrote before that you cannot ransom the Vice Presidency. You cannot disrespect our Nominee and expect to be his closest adviser. You cannot hold him figuratively hostage at gunpoint and expect him to embrace you.
If you want the Vice Presidency, if you want Barack Obama to be our next President, then you must first concede your race for the Presidency. If you truly want to reclaim your and your husband's legacy, you simply have to acknowledge reality. You simply have to embrace and endorse the next President of the United States, Barack Obama.
And the longer you do not, the longer you hold out in the delusional thought that you are maximizing your supposed leverage, the less respect and admiration I can have for you.
And yes, I have respect and admiration for you. Remember, I was once your supporter. You lost my support during this campaign, but I still desperately want to hold you again in my respect and esteem. You are a champion, and I never want to have to be forced to say "You were a champion."
But by refusing to concede last night, by refusing to accept reality, by refusing to unify with our nominee, by refusing to even display any quality last night except petulance and narcissism, you place yourself and your husband squarely in the past tense.
If you continue your insulting and disrespectful actions towards Senator Barack Obama, his supporters, and the Democratic Party, two things will happen.
First, you will not be chosen as his Vice President.
Second, your career in Democratic and American politics will be finished.
You and your husband have lost before. Thus, you must know that even after defeat there is a future.
Bill Clinton lost the governorship of Arkansas in 1980 after a chaotic first term that was deemed a disappointment on many levels. Yet there was a future for you and him. He returned to victory and personal glory in 1982.
In 1991, your husband was widely deemed to be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Yet revelation after revelation about his draft status during Vietnam and his personal indiscretions seemed to doom his campaign before it really got started. And yet, there was a future.
He finished a strong and surprising second in New Hampshire, and was deemed the Comeback Kid.
After your husband secured the nomination in April, yes in April 1992, he was polling a distant third in a three man race against President Bush and Ross Perot. There was talk that we Democrats should nominate someone else at the convention if we really wanted to win the White House in the fall. Your husband seemed like a sure loser. And yet there was a future.
He campaigned vigorously and with a little luck (i.e. Ross Perot dropping out), he was able vault ahead in the polls and never relinquish the lead on the way to the White House.
In 1994, after the disappointment of the first half of your husband's first term, and after you failed to accomplish universal healthcare reform, Democrats lost control of both Houses of Congress for the first time in fifty years. Your husband was widely deemed to be a failed first term President. And yet, there was a future. After it looked like your husband was going to be impeached, there was a future.
There is always a future of success after failure, Hillary. For we always learn from our mistakes and failures and disappointments so as to make ourselves better people. And armed with the new lessons about ourselves, we succeed where we have failed before. There is always a future Hillary.
You have to know that.
So now, you just have to accept with humility and grace your failure this time, and if you do that, there will be a future for you, your husband and your combined legacy of accomplishment.
If you accept failure with contempt, disrespect and petulance, then there is no future for you. You will learn nothing from this experience but resentment and spite. And those emotions do not make you a better person.
I desperately hope, for my sake as an admirer of you, but also as a Democrat and an American, that you chose to have a future.