It Took an Intervention to Get Clinton Out of the Democratic Race

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Last updated on July 1st, 2012 at 06:54 am

Hillary Clinton will suspend her campaign on Saturday, and once she endorses Barack Obama this weekend, the Democratic Party will be able to fully move on towards November.

It is amazing to consider that despite the fact that Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination last night, Hillary Clinton was still in no hurry to admit defeat, and let her dream of being president in 2008 go. Clinton viewed her exit as negotiable, and it took an intervention by 20 of her supporters in Congress, before she finally was able to admit to herself that it was over.

In part, her feelings are understandable. Everything that the Clintons have done since Bill left office in 2001 was designed to lead up to Hillary returning them to the White House in 2008. Relocating to New York and winning the Senate seat was a move designed to make Mrs. Clinton a national political figure and a presidential candidate.

However, the Clintons didn’t count on such a dramatic change occurring in the political mood of the nation. The Obama camp understood the mood among Democrats, and they tapped into it perfectly. Clinton ran much of her early campaign as if time had stood still since 2001, and the world had not changed. Her campaign had been notoriously slow to adapt and change, so it should not be any surprise that it took the political equivalent of a ton of bricks to get her to see that it is over.

Hillary Clinton needed an intervention by her strongest supporters to show her how self destructive and detrimental her thinking was becoming not only to her party, but also to her own career. The blind zealots who urged her to keep fighting were her enablers. The Democratic Party owes a debt of gratitude to Charlie Rangel for organizing this intervention to talk some sense into Hillary Clinton and getting her out of the race, because if Hillary had her way this thing might have dragged on until August.