Tomorrow night, following the last of the primaries, Clinton will suspend her campaign and endorse Barack Obama. She has told her biggest fundraisers to attend her speech in NYC tomorrow. She is scheduled to return to Washington on Wednesday and has no further campaign events planned. She has told her staffers to submit all receipts for reimbursement by the end of the week.
The condition for her departure is that she gets to be the one to heal and unite the party. Obama has told all of the superdelegates who will support him that they must publicly commit immediately after Tuesday night, and no later than Thursday. This, of course, will let Hillary position herself as the great healer, the one who gave up "the popular vote*" in favor of party unity. Hillary has allegedly threatened that if there is no rush of support to Obama following her withdrawal, she will resume her campaign and take it all the way to the Convention.
Lessons of the day:
- Hillary's like that little kid who won't give up an argument unless he gets to end it on his terms and, if not, threatens to take his ball and go home.
- Clinton must endorse Obama tomorrow. Anything less will make her endorsement meaningless and will prevent her from becoming the great unifier of the Democratic Party.
- The fact that Clinton did not win the popular vote is no reason for her not to say she did.
- Tomorrow night will determine Clinton's legacy. I say she'll give a guarded endorsement of Obama, leaving the door open just enough for a run in 2012. Whether Obama wins or loses, the party will never forgive her for making the election about her.
- The Clinton era is over. The Clinton influence, like the Kennedy influence, will never go away.
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