Hillary Seals The Deal

by Steve Soto

Reuters photo of Hillary leading the New York delegation to vote for Obama

A short while ago, Hillary Clinton made sure the Democratic Party avoided any more distractions on the way towards nominating Barack Obama for president. She released her delegates this afternoon, thereby eliminating any chance for a divisive floor vote, and led the convention to nominate Obama by acclamation, which just took place. She did all of this before her husband gives his speech later today.

Yet I'm sure we'll still have to endure utter bullshit from the media and the GOP today and tonight about PUMAs, a lingering civil war within the party, and Hillary supporters who will refuse to vote for Obama as the party's nominee. You see, Hillary could have walked up to every one of her delegates today and personally forced them to vote for Obama, and still the media and GOP would continue the drivel about a divided party, because the media wants conflict instead of substance, and because the GOP knows it and plays to it. And because the Democrats refuse to beat the sh*t out of either of them for it.

The unfortunate truth about this week's convention is that the Democrats had no chance. Specifically, they had little chance that Obama would get his message out, little chance that the party could put forward a united front, and little chance that they could hammer the hell out of McCain. Why? Because the GOP knew that if it stoked the "divided Democrats" theme hard enough with a sheeplike media, it could count on the media doing its part to ignore the Democratic message and spin the convention along terms favorable to the GOP and McCain. And lacking a strong Democratic message in the media, the GOP then coordinated a strong McCain pushback campaign during this week so that what got covered during the convention were largely McCain's attacks, and the "divided Democrats" theme to the exclusion of any Democratic offensive against McCain. Face it: not only do they own the media, but the GOP knows how to beat the media better than we do.

Yes, Biden and Obama can score some points over the next two days, and will get some more sunlight to do so now that Hillary has gone the last full measure today to end the chance for any grenades. But there never was going to be a bounce from this convention for Obama because of all this.

The first chance Obama will have to start doing damage to McCain and see the results won't come until we get past the conventions and get into the debates. The GOP won't be able to seed the media any longer with the divided Democrats theme, or continue to make Hillary and Bill the bogeymen. The media will then be forced to actually cover what happens on those stages across the country when the two candidates go face-to-face.

So don't despair about any more of the crap from the GOP or the drivel from the media this week, or even next. The deck has been stacked by the GOP effectively to get them through this period with little harm. In fact, McCain is at risk over the next several days with his VP pick and how that pick and the platform fight goes at their convention. Hillary has now done her part to seal off any further damage to Obama this week from within the party, and she should be respected and commended for doing so.

We should all now look forward to a time two weeks from now when McCain will have nothing left to hide behind, and will have to carry on the charade himself. And also to watch Biden beat the snot out of Romney, Ridge, or Pawlenty.

And it wouldn't hurt if Democrats around the country turned some of that intraparty energy and anger outward from fighting each other to beating the crap out of the media for their role in all of this.