Today I was happy to learn that former senator John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama. Watching Obama and Edwards on stage together I thought these guys look like a team. Then I remembered that Edwards got 7% of the vote in West Virginia's primary, nearly 4 months after he dropped out and he's getting that level of support! This really made me think that if John Edwards will accept the vice presidency than he should be Obama's running mate.

Now, for starters, I am certainly not calling Hillary supporters right wing nuts.  I believe the vast majority believe in progressive principles and are as liberal as I am if not more so.  The reason I make this comparison is simple:  prominent right wing figures such as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" Cunningham have been reading Alegre’s talking points, or vice versa.  What this says about Hillary supporters I will leave up to you to discuss in the comments, but here is my take:

So this whole idea of Obama helping to retire Hillary's debt is controversial.  Many argue that the Clintons have enough money and they don't need Obama's help.  Fair enough.

But I have an idea by which Obama could retire Hillary's debt and get his money's worth.

Once Obama is the nominee, the two of them should go on a unity campaign tour together.  

They should appear in big rallies that will double as small dollar fundraisers to retire Hillary's debt.

Hillary gets her debt retired and Obama gets a strong show of support from Hillary.

Win-win?

My grandmother is a white upper middle class Yankee. The only black folks she interacted with (before my father married her daughter) were those who worked for her as help or at her husband’s business.  She has shades of racism that she does not recognize but are second nature to her. I can say without a doubt that she loves me and my brother, as she loves any of her other grand kids.

It is worth mentioning that she always voted for the Democratic Party and she believed in the civil rights movement and social justice.

Before you swamp me with complaints, hear me out, OK?

I know that this probably won't be popular here at dKos, but I have an idea for a great way to emphasize unity in the days after Senator Clinton drops out of the race (which I believe is certain to occur before much of June is in the books).

My proposal is this: we, as a community, should create an ActBlue page for helping to retire Senator Clinton's debts.

I am aware that not many folks savor such a prospect, especially if their whole-hearted donation to Senator Obama is going to Hillary without their permission.

And that's exactly why Senator Obama would not do it that way. He knows better, so give him the benefit of the doubt.

Please bear with me as this is my first Diary attempt. It was a lot more eloquent as I thought about it than what now appears below.

One thing that this election has highlighted more than anything else is the problem we have as a party. Our "big tent" has drawn together many different groups that vote Democrat for many different reasons. This in itself is not the problem. The problem is that these groups do not necessarily agree with one another and even more, do not even interact with one another.

I think we have to be empathetic to how hard this has to be be for the Clintons.   They must feel like Tom Brady did when the Giants rushed on to the field.   They must feel betrayed by a party they think owed them for all they did in the 90's.  

So what do we do to unify the party?    There are a lot of good ideas - stop Clinton bashing, give them space, retire their debt, hire their staffers, etc.  Some say unity ticket, but I think that this would be mistake for a variety of reasons.   But whether Hillary ends up VP, Senate Majority Leader, Supreme Court Justice or whatever, a consolation prize is still a consolation prize.  

But I have an idea that I think might get the Clintons to go beyond the motions and truly work their hearts out for Obama.  Obama should promise Bill and Hillary now that when he wins, Chelsea will be given a job in an Obama White House.   Obama will become political mentor and door-opener for Chelsea in a party that will now be his.   Combining the talents of the Clintons with the mentorship and imprimatur of Obama, Chelsea would be well-positioned to seek high political office someday and even become a future President.

For the past five months, as caucus after primary came and went, we've become more and more polarized with respect to our two sides here.  With last night's results from North Carolina and Indiana being digested, we are all doing a bit more soul searching and a bit more reassessing to figure out what is going on now. There are many calls for unity and for a less confrontational dialogue with Clinton supporters on this site and on the numerous other blogs and newspaper comment threads throughout the country.

However, I'm not ready to forgive and forget, yet.

My fellow Obama supporters.  Tonight is a night of celebration.  We have won a decisive victory in North Carolina, and although we are just shy, Indiana went about as good as we could have possibly hoped. Tonight, the message is clear.  Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Even the mainstream media and the pundits are finally acknowledging this fact.  There will be pressure in the coming days from both the media and those inside Senator Clinton's inner circle for her to suspend her campaign in the coming days.  It may be tomorrow, it may be a week from now, or it may be after June 3rd.  But one thing is clear.  This campaign is winding down, and we have won.

So I have a simple request for my fellow Obama supporters, below the fold.

One day, this Democratic primary will end.

When the smoke clears, there will be two possible outcomes, one more likely than the other. Superdelegates will have decided that Barack Obama is not electable, and will overturn the will of the voters or superdelegates will support the candidate with the most elected delegates and nominate Barack Obama.

In either scenario, the candidate who loses will become the face of a fractured party and will have some healing, unifying, and convincing to do. Recent exit polling shows a large portion of Hillary's supporters would consider voting for John McBush even after living through the last eight years. There is certainly a high level of passion among Hillary's supporters, especially now that the media-driven narrative would have us believe a comeback is taking place, but I don't know that these attitudes would survive a general election campaign.

One way to help heal the party would be to select a vice-presidential candidate from the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party and I believe the best person for the job is Gen. Wesley Kanne Clark.

I had an interesting listen to DNC Chair Howard Dean today on Meet the Press.  Tim tried to pin him down on a few issues, mainly, would the will of the people in this election be overturned?  So here are the issues that are being pointed out as "undemocratic":

... the next time you talk to a Clinton supporter.

My Fellow Democrats...

I stand here before you today, with Senator Clinton on one side of me, and President Clinton on the other, and we have something wonderful to share with you about the bruising battle we have just fought for our party's nomination.

About two months ago, after winning several consecutive primary and caucus contests in the wake of Super Tuesday, I received a most gracious phone call from Senator Clinton.

I was reading dsharma's diary that says, in a nutshell, that it's looking like Obama is going to win, and we Obama supporters need to start looking toward party unity and lay off flaming Clinton.

It was a wake-up call for me. And after thinking about it for a while, I decided to write this diary, to try to take dsharma's call one step further.

We are known as the big tent party.

Given that there is little policy difference between Obama and Hillary (which, BTW, made me a JRE supporter), it is time to unite the party.

Many including myself have seen the divisive Democratic Primaries as being akin to a circular firing squad.  It seems that we are so busy tearing each other down in support of our candidates that we are giving the Republicans a free pass.  In a few months this game will end and unless something unusual happens Barack Obama will be the Democratic Nominee.

I take her at her word. I mean,  I see no reason to doubt her on that.

Remember triangulation?  The Clinton strategy of 1994-1996 that won the Presidency while abandoning  Congress to the Republicans. It is the reason  Bill Clinton was not able to put much of his agenda through. It is the reason we don't have universal health care. Why we got NAFTA. It is why he got impeached.

Everything the Clintons do is out of political calculation. That is not all bad; that is how Bill Clinton beat back the Republican Congress. He  did give us budget surpluses, peace and prosperity. Those are not small accomplishments. If Obama were not offering the  prospect of something substantially better, we would gladly settle for yet  another Clinton to clean up the mess of another Bush.

When Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq war she was following a continuation of the strategy of triangulation.  The idea was to blur the distinction with the Republicans.  It was taken for granted that Sen. Clinton would be the 2008 Democratic nominee at that time. If the war had turned out good and Sen. Clinton had voted against it, that would have been a drag on her GE prospects. She was willing to sacrifice others to ensure her own political viability.

Despite how difficult the past 7 years have been under Shrub's presidency, we must continue to fight.

I decided to write this diary as a "war cry" of sorts and to add some positive vibes. Too often, we're consumed with candidate diaries and so-forth and lacking in positive reinforcement.