Salon.com has the scoop: In an email to supporters, Hillary Clinton announces that she will concede to Barack Obama on Saturday morning in Washington, D.C., and endorse him as the Democratic candidate:
On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy. This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans.
The full text of her email is at the link to Salon above. Commentary after the jump...
I only wish that she had taken the more usual step of conceding on Tuesday night. Instead, Clinton not only (falsely) claimed to have won the popular vote, but also took the bizarre position that "South Dakota had the last word" -- this, just minutes before the Montana results came in, with a big Obama victory to close out the primary season.
Such statements only crystallized for me the many clumsy errors and glaring deceptions that became the hallmark of her campaign. And I can only wonder: What has Clinton accomplished, really, since mid-March -- when this outcome became an inevitable conclusion -- besides harming the Democratic nominee? When I think of all the mud thrown at Obama by her campaign, and all the Democratic dollars wasted on extending the primary rather than banking them up for the general, it is deeply frustrating. Clinton herself acknowledges the "stakes" in her email, ones I wish she had come to grips with sooner:
I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise.
But all that is over, I suppose, and this is the time for unity -- and beating McCain. I truly hope that Clinton does not merely "intend" to honor her promise to support the nominee, but will do so with as much true gusto as she pursued her own candidacy.