I don't know when this will happen. It could be March or May or even at the convention. But as sure as the sun rises in the East, it will happen. The sooner it happens, the better, as far as I'm concerned. If it does occur before the Convention, in all likelihood it will be Clinton endorsing Obama, but maybe not. Maybe Clinton will maintain or even widen her lead in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania and manage to pull this out. Doubtful, yes, but I'm past saying anything is impossible.
Either way, when it is all over the candidates who did not win will rally around the Party's nominee. Clinton, Obama and the party leadership will have sorted out the Super Delegate issue and have found a way to deal with the delegates from Florida and Michigan. They are not there yet, but they will get there before this is over. They will do so because though each candidate has a tremendous investment in their own candidacy, they understand that the stakes are even larger than their own selves. We will either see Bill campaigning for Barack or Michelle campaigning for Hillary when the time comes.
The losing candidate will do one more thing. She/he will ask his/her supporters to support the nominee and do everything they can to insure that the Democratic candidate wins in November. That will be a tough request for many Democrats who have invested time, energy, money and passion in their candidate. It will be hard for many to let loose of the investment in their candidate that they have made through this long primary season. It will be asking much. But I trust that, as with the loosing candidates themselves, the supporters of those candidates will also understand the need to rally around the nominee.
I think it would be useful for all who are passionately promoting their candidate to keep this in mind. One of these candidates will lose, as have Dodd, Biden, Edwards, Richardson and Kucinich before them. And when that candidate endorses the winner and asks her/his supporters to vote for the nominee, will they be prepared to do so. I suppose there may be some who were prepared to trust their candidate as President for the next four years; who were willing to contribute time, money and their emotions to see their Candidate elected; but who are not willing to trust that same person's judgement on whether the Democratic nominee deserves their support. But It's hard to believe there are many like that. After all, if one can't trust a person's judgement on who should be President how could one have possibly trusted that person's judgement to serve as President.
This is as close to a candidate diary as I wish to get. I write it only to remind all of us that this primary will end and that is when the battle to regain control of our Nation will begin in earnest. I hope, but do not expect, that all the supporters of Guiliani, Huckabee, Thompson, Paul, Hunter, Brownback and Tancredo will decide that the Republican nominee is an apostate that is not deserving of their support. But surely, we Democrats will not be that way. After all, we have the best interests of the Constitution, our Nation and the American people at heart.
