For all the Obama supporters out there who have not yet warmed up to Hillary Clintion, I want to take this time to tell you it's time to get on the bandwagon. I saw her on CNN last night, and I thought she was outstanding in her surrogacy.
Let me start by explaining that I have been a Barack Obama supporter since before he announced, but I have also been a big fan of Hillary Clinton. In my opinion, a lot of Obama supporters were extremely unfair in their critiquing of her primary campaign. As the GE has proven, campaigns are tough and you can't expect candidates to give up without a fight. I think Obama's debate performances have been excellent, better than they ever were during the Primaries, and I give Hillary a lot of credit for sharpening him up for these.
Back to my original point, I think Hillary's commentary on CNN was outstanding and very effective for Barack. This became clear to me when she was asked about McCain being like Bush, and she said something to the effect of, "Well, he's not the exact same person as Bush, but with his policies on all the major issues, it's hard to tell the difference." This is a paraphrase, and not an exact quote, but her tone of voice and facial expression as she transitions from the obvious point that they aren't the same person, to then saying their policies are the same was pitch perfect (my wife agreed).
Her whole conversation was perfect. She went on and on about how great a leader Barack is going to be and how much their policies are similar. She did it without the ranting and obvious tone of bias in her voice that you normally get from a surrogate, and it made it sound really credible.
I think this crystallized the whole tenor of the Clinton's through this GE period. They have slowly moved from jilted candidates, to wary surrogates, to getting stronger and stronger in their direct support of Obama (though Hillary got there a lot faster), to finally full throated surrogates. Because they have let this build, and because they have never come across as overly biased, I think it has helped their credibility.
In the earlier part of this GE, folks were concerned that the Clintons were not bringing over their supporters. Now, it is clear that Obama is getting plenty of them and is therefore polling as well with Dems as McCain is with Repubs. Hillary comes across as someone who is happy to see Obama succeeding, and I believe that is coming across to her supporters. I think the Clintons have done a great job slowly bringing their supporters along, and I believe they knew this had to be the approach from the start.
I sincerely hope that Obama supporters come to appreciate what the Clintons have been through and what they have done recently. I don't think any presidential candidate has ever suffered a more heartbreaking loss than Hillary suffered. When they asked her what she thought about the fact that it could have been her in the debate, she showed an incredible amount of grace and covered what must have been an incredible amount of disappointment in pondering that question.
I think the Clintons are great, and I think Hillary is proving to be an outstanding surrogate! They are on our side, and they always have been. I hope we all recognize that!!!