Hillary Clinton is out.

Man I’ve been wanting to write that heading for a long time.

After 16 months, 10 of which were as front runner 2 of which were battling up-hill, and 4 of which were banging a head against a brick wall, Hillary Clinton finally endorsed Barack Obama, and dropped out of the Democratic race for candidate. She ran a horrible race, lost something that was 90% going to be hers, and has ticked off many people out there. But make no mistake about it, she could have made things a lot worse had she not endorsed or dropped out. They aren’t mutually exclusive things, and not are they compulsory. The fact that she did both shows that she might have some sense, even if it is all based on selfish actions and looking out for the Clinton’s ahead of the country and the party.

Her campaign has already had hundreds of postmortems carried out. In all, the campaign staff (especially director Mark Penn), the arrogance and over-confidence, the whole month of February (and the failure to plan for post-Super Tuesday, and the process of ignoring ‘the little states’), and her flip-flopping approaches the Obama (ignoring in 2007, friendly to Super Tuesday, stupid aggressive in March and April, and ignorant of his tactics across the whole race) are the factors that get the worst wrap. I agree with them. I also agree that she would have won had it been any other year, without Obama running. Bad luck for her? No, I wouldn’t say so. It was an issue of timing. The fact that Bush “beat” Gore in 2000, and Bush beat Kerry in 2004, meant that Clinton only ever had this year to run a campaign where she would be successful. But the political scene and the politically-aware population want change, thanks to two failed Bush terms, and the generational change that’s starting to happen. It coincided with Clinton’s only chance to run for office. Maybe it’s not even a coincidence that the call for change came in a race that Clinton was in …

It’s the second last step that Obama needs. The final is the official nomination come the Democratic National Convention. But for all intents and purposes, it is over. I know I’ve said that something like 4 or 5 times over the past 6 months, but really it is this time. The nomination if the confirmation.
It will be a big celebration then.

Thomas.