I saw this coming a month ago, but just didn't know exactly when it would happen.  I think you're right: after the next primary is a good time to bow out gracefully, and today is the time to start campaigning with Obama as an ally.

Thanks Todd - classy post.

Good post Todd.  I don't agree that they can be on the same ticket, but I'm certainly not going to be talking about that tonight when there's a lot of sadness over here.  But in a few weeks or so, when the healing has commenced, I'd be glad to have a lively discussion on who the VP should be.

Thanks for all your work in this primary campaign, Todd.  You and Jonathan have kept me coming back here despite the deluge of absurdity and intellectual dishonesty coming from many of the Clinton partisans on mydd, including some of the other front page posters.  And your disclosure of your preference on Super Tuesday was done skillfully and with respect for your entire audience.  I hold you up as an example of an honest Clinton partisan here whenever I am elsewhere and discussing the current state of this blog in it's Hillary HQ incarnation. I shudder to think of how the bias might have spiraled out of control here without your nformed perspective tempering the Clinton viewpoint on mydd.  You are clearly a great asset to online politics and the progressive movement.  I look forward to being on the same team for the next six months.

Incredible Post Todd. Thank You soo much. Your idea for Hillary to camp as an ally looks fantastic. Yeah, we'll come together and beat John McCain. We will do.

to continue.

It is to campaign in the remaining states, but to end all attacks on Obama.  If she does so, she in effect becomes an insurance policy that Democrats can use if for some reason events make Obama unelectable.

But she has to stop the attacks.  If she continues she risks her future within the party and endangers Bill's place in history.

The nomination fight is essentially over.

The hard part is about to begin.

Can we all take a moment and appreciate how truly fucked Mr. McCain is now?

The guy is so, so fucked now.

It's like in the cartoons when the little animal tricks the two much bigger animals into fighting each other.

Then after the dust clears, and the two big animals realize they're fighting each other, and turn their heads to see the little animal standing there sheepishly grinning.

...they then fuck up the little animal.

The little bastard animal in this terrible analogy is Sen. John McCain.

I love it.

Barrack wins even with Hills best Michigan scenario.  It is wild  It is noit only MSNBC, but CNN was also in the smae vein...but not now, in the morning vein...which should tell us progressives that do you watch KOS, MyDD, CNN, MSNBC or FOX!!!!!!!

or your heart and your brain?  

The answere is simple and it is clear

Make MyDD a clearinghouse for progressive ideals

I don't think it was a tie before tonight.

Maybe on February 19th?

I think after a couple of weeks, it needs to be investigated if Hillary would be interested in any top position in an Obama cabinet.

1) Secretary of State

2. Health Czar
   
3. Education Czar
   
4. Labor Secretary

or the party can have her replace Harry Reid in the leadership position.

I do not know how practical any of this can be.

I think VP slot should go to someone like Webb.

I don't see it that way at all. She was supposed to lose both a couple weeks ago and only needed to win IN and keep NC within 20%.

8-10% and to lose NC by 1-3%

Just winning IN and not losing NC by more than 20% was a win for Clinton.

as Alegre and others have said.

Don't give in to the blogger boys TM.

Very nice post. I certainly hope that eventually all of the avid Hillary supporters can come to the point where you are.

I like your idea of both of them campaigning together in WV, KY, and OR. I'm sure she has a massive campaign debt to retire (alegre's vigorous fundraising efforts nothwithstanding), and it would make much more sense to pay off that debt than to waste even more money on ads and field.  The feelings may still be too raw for this to happen, but what an amazing thing it would be.

As for the unity ticket, sorry, but it is a horrible idea. Obama should not have to spend his presidency worrying about what the ambitious couple at the Naval Observatory are cooking up. I'm thinking Bill in particular, who cannot even be controlled by his wife's campaign -- what's to stop him from undercutting President Obama if the whim takes him?

Here's hoping that her climbdown is as tactful and heartfelt as yours, Todd.

I'm a Hillary supporter until she drops out, but i agree that a very difficult path has become an almost impossible one unless something major happens soon.

Obama is an outstanding nominee, and he has my full support.

This contest has been good for Obama, he can now go into the general and say i took on the Clinton machine in the Democratic Party and i won. So don't ever doubt my ability to beat McCain.

Todd:

Buck up, little camper, it's all good!

Okay, snide condescension (and bragodocio) aside, it's not a tragedy that Senator Obama will be our nominee, it's a great result for the Democratic party and the USA.

Come to the light, Hillary people!  All are welcome!

President Obama.  Get used to saying it.

Has the coronation begun even here at mydd? Ah, well. It may be that Obama will be the nominee, but just as his pastor speaks of the chickens  coming home to roost, perhaps it's best for Obama supporters not to count their chickens before they hatch. Obama is an underwhelming candidate for many of us. Yes, there are many partisans out there who will tick the right box in November, but there are also many of us who find the conduct of the Obama campaign and the Democrats' blessing of it a good reason to opt out of the process altogether.

and most reasonable of her supporters.  Her excellent and reasoned posts have been part of the reason I continuing coming here.  If the primary wars have done anything, they have allowed us to experience the utter joy of reuniting as one party to kill these Republicans who want to destroy our country.

Thank you!  

Obama will have my full support and back from now on. Good diary. We need more like this.

thanks for the post.

Excellent summary.

I think the best way to go for Senator Clinton is, as you noted, by going on to May 20th. If Obama wins Oregon, as I don't see why he wouldn't, then she can bow out on a high note (having won West Virginia and Kentucky). There really is no credible path to the nomination anymore sans a superdelegate coup at the convention that would tear the party apart.
Who knows if she will press on to the end - that wouldn't do much harm in my opinion but I don't see the rationale for that anymore after last night.

on bridging the gap between the issues - there was little space between them but I understand why some people feel more comfortable over Senator Clinton's Universal Health Care initiative than Senator Obama's.

The wording; the rhetoric - the feeling of it actually being universal is a quality that makes it both infinitely better and difficult to pass congress.

I wonder if Senator Obama will take Senator Clinton along for the rider or if she turns it down; or if in her concession she asks that he does this for her. It was perhaps her biggest political goal; perhaps something that she felt strongest about.

That maybe one area where the gaps may be bridged. But I do know Senator Obama wants to move further to the center and his position at the moment is one that could be pushed through congress a bit more easily.

Another issue is special interests. I think supporters of Senator Clinton need to e-mail her and say of the three things that dragged her down and possibly cost her the election other than Mark Penn and the Inevitability Narrative, it was the special interests.

This was a change election and Senator Clinton needs to strongly attack those special interests and start showing she does not see them as groups that represent real Americans but entrenched, elitist scum of the earth types that make the Middle Class disappear faster than a cup of water in the Sahara.

If she wants to be Vice President, she needs to adopt the Obama-meme.

I believe furthermore we need to automatically adopt a strict, no tolerance of McCain policy. Absolutely none. We may respect his war history but we need to start the slogans now.

And they're going to be strong.

I think "100 Years" is our best at the moment. But we've missed a serious opportunity to label him as a flip-flopper. The American people love that, it seems, but at least in this instance, it would be true. Contrast John McCain of 2000 and 2001 and the John McCain of 2008. Have Senator Kerry going around talking about how John McCain's camp approached him to create a unity ticket in 2004.

100% focus of attention on attacking John McCain without mercy. Have our positions outlined, but every stump speech should include one mention of John McCain's war service and a thousand things that make me want to vomit about him.

I do like the Abraham Lincoln appeal mentioned in the article cited in the diary - that could be the angle they use. I know it'll anger a lot of people but we're getting to that point where either candidate would be doomed without one or the other.

I don't know yet. We'll have to see.

Democrats,

The time is now to rally around the flag and go all-in to elect President Obama. The hard truth may still be setting in, but it is, in fact, the truth. Barack Obama will be OUR party's nominee, and he needs every ounce of energy--time, support, funds--you gave so graciously in support of Hillary refocused in his favor and directed against John McCain. We will elect Barack Obama as our nation's president in six months because of how we came together right now, in this instant.

Reconciliation Begins Now.

I agree that the inverse of what occurred was the minimum needed to proceed with a realistic, if remote, shot of securing the nomination by way of a path that did not include bringing down the party.  Whether she rides it out through the 20th or even June 3rd in order to honor her campaign commitments or to help heal the rift is immaterial in terms of the now inevitable result of the process.  Whether you are satisfied with the result or not, Sen. Obama will be our party's nominee.  Sen. Clinton's perhaps 15-20% chance is now significantly less than 1% and only a dead girl or a live boy will change that.

Sadly it is over for her and I hope she either accepts the VP slot as part of healing the party, or better, that she replaces Reid in short order as Senate Majority Leader.  She fights better than the boxer from Searchlight.

"Senator Clinton had a really bad night and Senator Obama had a phenomenal one"

Over 600,000 North Carolineans voted against the democratic front-runner.  I wouldn't use the term 'phenomenal'.  He also lost a state that he was expected to win.

Strange to see this post coming so soon.  All these weeks, I thought I would be leaping for joy the day Obama finally put it away ("closed the deal", if you will).  Instead, I'm just tired.  Very, very tired of the primary wars.  I don't think that everyone will jump right on the Obama bandwagon, nor do I expect them to.  Hell, let's wait a few days at least to see what Clinton herself wants to do.  But in the end, real Democrats across the country know that we stand together or fall alone.  Any one of our candidates (Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Richardson, Biden, Dodd, even Kucinich and Gravel) would make a better president than McCain.  It hurts to see your favored candidate go down to someone you are at best ambivalent towards.  But that's what a lot of us had to go through back in 2004, when one by one Dean, Clark, and Edwards dropped out and only the Kerry juggernaut was left.  I was a Deaniac 100%, barely even knew Kerry.  Was I upset?  Yes.  But voting for Bush, or Nader, or abstaining, or writing in Dean's name wasn't even an option, it didn't even go through my head.

And what do you know, I actually got to like Kerry, and it's a shame we didn't get to see him as president, the past four years would have been very interesting to see.

Anyway, to all the Clinton supporters: don't take anything the over-excited Obama fans say personally.  It's been a long campaign and we're all tired, and the inherent anonymity of the internet tends to turn us all into assholes.  There's a lot of us trying our best to be pleasant tonight, I hope you all see that.

Let's beat McCain.

Powerfully written diary.

I've been an Obama supporter for a while - and while it often infuriated and frustrated me to make my multiple-stops-per-day at MyDD to read - I felt it was important to stay "plugged in" to what was going on over here - to hear the concerns, thoughts and perspectives of Hillary's supporters - chief among them, Todd's.

I know how hard it is to be gracious in defeat (as Democrats, we gotten plenty of practice in the last eight years) - and this post of Todd's speaks a lot to the reason why it never felt right to just stop coming to MyDD.

We've got a lot of work to do to defeat McCain - not to mention winning the myriad of congressional races that we're competitive in.  We're going to need Hillary's help - and Hillary's supporters help.  We will succeed as Democrats if we can unite as Democrats.

And now is the time.

Thanks Todd.

I must repeat what many have said. Great post, Todd. On point, level-headed, and heart-felt.

I hope all Democrats can now come together. We will unite.

She just reported that the Clinton camp believes IN and NC don't matter because the Democrats won't win there in November. I hope she was misquoting the Clinton campaign.

regarding Clinton as VP - this Obama supporter doesn't like her.  BUT, given how close and contentious the race has been, I will happily get behind her for the VP slot if that will go towards unifying the party.

Very classy post.

What bloody nonsense!

Obama still can't get the demographics he would need  for November. HIllary is getting those by higher and higher margins.

AAs cannot carry a November election. In most of those high-AA delegate states, the November voters have not even elected AAs to state offices.

The media and a local Obama mayor -- by withholding  results and possibly doctoring them -- put out a lot of discouraging smoke last night. Don't let's US believe it.

Great Diary.

Well on the Magical Unity Ticket (MUT), yes Obama should consider a running mate to appeal to white working class voters... but is HILLARY CLINTON the best person to accomplish that?

Sure she's preferred... to OBAMA but wouldn't there be a slate of candidates who are preferred to CLINTON?

You are one of the most honest and classy bloggers around.

Great post.

Good luck to you all about the Coronation of Prince Barack.

Thanks for all the condescending posts about Hillary who would be our nominee today if we follwed the same winner-take-all rules of the Republicans.

She has won everyone of the swing states in the mid-west, has won more big states him and attracts Reagan Democrats.

Obama leads in the pledged delegates because of his wins in red state caucuses and because of overwehelming support among the AA voters.

Thanks for your "kindness" in offering Hillary some bones. It is the same condescending and insulting mentality that has angered millions of Hillary supporters like me through this campaign. 50% of Hillary supporters in IN and NC said they would not vote for Obama if he were to eb the nominee.

After the way we were treated by the porgressive blogs now you want us to support Obama?

Good luck with that!

I am writing-in Hillary in the fall. I will not vote for an unqualified candidate. Hillary, of course, can do whatever she wants. She has earned that right. My loyalty is only to her and to her policies. It does not translate to anyone else.

...now let's go get McCain!

I was surprised at how sad I felt looking at Bill and Chelsea during last night's speech.  I'm happy for my guy, but it really brought home just how hard they worked for this and how much they wanted it.  I still think that if Clinton doesn't hire Penn, she might very well be talking about who she should choose for VP now.

Thanks for a classy post, Todd. I appreciate your ability to be conciliatory even when your candidate is losing. You will be able to pivot to a general election frame of mind which will be much harder for Jerome. Hillary has run a good campaign, but she never recovered from her early missteps. She disregarded the caucus states and that allowed Obama to build an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates. I hope that she will be graceful and step aside for the good of the party and not try to blow up the party at the convention. I think it would be unsuccessful and she would lose her standing in the party forever.

I think Hillary has waged a courageous, determined, winning campaign.

She has made the right decisions, hit the targets, and brought home the Democratic base.

Obama has swamped her with turnout, in places where non-Democrats have come out and broken all sorts of turnout records, but who will likely not vote Democrat in the Fall.

I feel Hillary was done in by a flawed process, and Obama's victory, while impressive, has not made him the more qualified candidate.

Obama's victory will put every old-South state in McCain's column before the first vote is cast, and also puts within reach of McCain places where Hillary would have no problem:  Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and maybe even New Jersey.

Gioven his issues with the Hispanic vote, Obama will lose Dem momentum in places where Dems have been surging, like NV, NM, CO, AZ, and VA.

Hillary is 50-70 Electoral votes stronger than Obama, but because he and his team were able to capitalize on the flaws in our Dem primary system, they will end up nominee.  And think they deserved it.

"Though she had a 'divide and conquor' frame of the issue that work well for a GE against a Republican".

History is written by the victors and if Senator Clinton had won the primary her tactics would have been seen as brilliant.

However, I have long thought that one of her fundamental failures was to keep on describing herself as an experienced problem solver without defining what the problem was.

The 'problem' was winning pledged delegates, it was not about winning a GE.

Obama concentrated on the problem of winning delegates, not least by paying attention to Caucuses. My expectation is that he will now start shifting his tactics to be GE friendly.

I really appreciate your post, Todd.  Over the course of this primary season, the often extreme pro-Hillary slant of MyDD (and its commenters) was almost enough to keep me away.  I almost removed MyDD from my RSS feeds many times.  But every once in a while I would get something of value that kept me coming back, and this post proves that there is more substance and perspective (at least from Todd) to be had.  This line of yours especially resonated with me:

"And let's be honest here, you and I know he is a far stronger candidate for having had Hillary Clinton as his opponent."

I have volunteered for the Obama campaign in several states and put in countless hours this season, and I must agree with you there.  It was extremely difficult to take as an Obama supporter, and I will be honest that my view of the Clintons (or their campaign) has lessened in some ways due to some of the attacks.  But I will say without hesitation that Hillary is one hell of a fighter, and a damn worthy opponent.  And when all the dust settles, Obama and his campaign have had to toughen up, as I think all of us on all sides have had to.  There are a million ways that this whole thing could still end badly, but if Democrats unite soon, lick our wounds and heal our divisions, we will be an unstoppable machine going into November!

Pure class, Todd.  Even through the worst of the pie fight of the last four months, yours has been a voice of sense, reason, and calm.

I feel that I, as an Obama supporter, have no place calling this thing over, or calling for HRC to drop out.  She's richly earned the right to be the only one to make that decision.  As long as she's still fighting, y'all keep fighting for her.  But regardless of that, this post is a good first step towards our two camps shaking hands and rolling up sleeves.  We have common cause, coming up.

I'm happy last night ended up the way it did...it could have gone either way.  But I'm sad because many of my brothers and sisters are sad.

I want us all to get along...not just as voters but because we came into this as like-minded ideologues, as friends.  Like the civil war, we have gone through a period of brother against brother, sister against sister.  That kind of fighting makes no one happy.

Like brothers in the civil war, slightly battered and tattered we all limp home to heal our wounds and go on.

Obama won by well over 14% in all of the surrounding states of North Carolina.  He had been projected earlier in the race to win by far more than that.

And Indiana was always a "toss up", maybe with a slight Obama edge because it is bordering Illinois and even on the Chicago market.

So, I don't really think anything changed dramatically last night.  The most dramatic thing that happened is Obama netted 200k votes, but was that really a huge surprise?  I agree that the burden is on Clinton to change the dynamic and she didn't, but I think she did about as well as can be expected barring the collapse of the Obama campaign.  

What we have seen throughout this race is both candidates have maintained their base - the only thing changing is the states that are voting.

I think the media wants this over because they are tired of talking about it - and most of the pundits favored Obama from the start.  

Obama is still the overwhelming favorite at this point.  But I still think he loses in November - which is the reason I have been supporting Hillary all along.

Dems should also fix the nomination process for 2012 so we can have a winner take all or same-day primary across the nation, and avoid producing a nominee after such a long drawn-out battle.

That said, I think it is time for Obama to offer Clinton something if he is the nominee.  It does not have to be the VP slot, but he can say that she would be in his cabinet.  Clinton may refuse or think it beneath her, but at least then we know that Obama is doing all he can to be conciliatory towards someone who should be a key ally for November.

Well maybe it's time for Hillary and ol'Bill to get fix up some Black eyed peas, cornbread, some pig's feet, and a bottle of Ripple, and hi tail it over to the Barrack Obama residence, for a pow wow, on how Hillary would best serve as Obama's VP.

Todd, great post.

Apart from everything else currently working against her, I believe that Hillary will shortly have to pack it in in any case for lack of campaign funding.  It's not as though she and Bill have the wealth of Mitt Romney, with the ability to self-fund more or less indefinitely.  The donations are extremely likely to dry up, and campaigns without money are simply not viable.

I supported Hillary after my other first choices dropped out of the race, but will be happy to cast a vote for Obama in November.  

The choice for VP will be interesting.  I'd have to guess it would be publicly offered to Hillary, in the interest of restoring unity in the party.  Frankly, the first and most important job of the VP candidate is to help ensure that the ticket wins the White House - which has made for a lot of unusual VP choices over the years.  What would Hillary bring to the ticket?  Well, to start, a fairly extensive grassroots organization, as well as large numbers of women and hispanic voters. Granted, there are a considerable number of folks who dislike Hillary but, fortunately, most of them are already unlikely to vote for Obama in November.  

Any other VP candidate will have to bring at least as much to the table - or provide the high probability that his or her presence on the ticket would carry a swing state (one with lots of electoral votes) for the Democrats. Maybe Virginia's Warner could do this, but there are not many such choices.  I like Edwards, but I'm not convinced that he brings any electoral votes to the game, and while Richardson might help to carry NM, that's doesn't provide a lot of help with electoral votes.  Now, if we had a good VP choice who could bring along Florida or Ohio, that would be interesting (of course, it could be argued that Hillary would be as mich help in these states and anyone else).

Thank you, Todd, for your eloquence. Although Hillary's behavior this morning is perplexing, it seemed like an end to me. My wife and I have been at daggers drawn for months - we became citizens last August, and for this? She, once a fervent Clinton supporter, lately an Obama precinct deelegate, has become more and more angry at Hillary (the one, I still claim, that she sees refracted through a biased press) and by extension at me. Last night I sat quietly and asked her to give me time to mourn.

As of today I have switched my support from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama. Barack Obama's huge win in North Carolina and small loss in Indiana convinced me.  As a life-long voting Democrat I urge Hillary Clinton supporters to come to terms and smell the coffee. I also urge those in our party who are threatening to vote for McCain in the general election if Obama becomes our candidate to seriously, and I mean this, seriously search their souls. For the damage done to our nation and to the world by G.W. Bush's shameful legacy will only deepen in a McCain administration . Let's now all unite and elect Barrack Obama to the White House in 2008!

Todd--much appreciated heartfelt words about the state of the race and the end game. I have always enjoyed your writing and your ability to advocate for Clinton while not totally writing off Obama. I look forward to your further writings as we attempt to put Barack in the White House.

Just got a shout out for this diary on MSNBC. Nice work Todd.

Congratulations part of your diary was highlighted on MSNBC at 2:25PM

Senator Clinton had a really bad night and Senator Obama had a phenomenal one. It's impossible to overstate the significance of what he accomplished, not only considering what he's overcome over the past three weeks but also considering how decisively he denied Clinton what she needed to continue to have a credible path to the nomination.

Nice job!!!!