A Great Night for America; A Small Moment for Clinton

America celebrates a great moment in its history tonight, as a land that once counted blacks as 2/5 of a person now has one poised to become the nation's President.

The best reason to vote for Barack Obama for President, though, is not his color. It's because, between him and John McCain, Barack is the best person for the job.

Obama steps forward tonight as the duly-elected nominee for the Democratic Party for President of the United States. In his victory speech tonight, both out of real character and political need, he was magnanimous and kind to his primary opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton. And, beyond that, he caught fire in a speech which captured the imagination and created a thrill for what could be.

Meanwhile, the greatest hope that America has ever had of seeing a woman run the country showed just how little she could be tonight. After having already started trying to push her name forward as a good VP candidate to go to the White House on Obama's coat-tails, Clinton further embarassed herself tonight by deciding not to concede, even as she essentially acknowledged that she'd lost.

Obama will be forced to consider her as a possibility for the back seat on his ticket. But, really, why should he entertain the thought? Clinton doesn't have the temperament of a number two, and her ambition (I believe) would prevent her from fulfilling the tacit understanding that a Vice President's job is to support her boss.

One line of thinking is that Obama needs to reach out to Clinton, because otherwise Clinton's voters won't support him in the national election. But, really, does that make sense? Sure, some of Clinton's supporters are racist whites who'll decide not to vote for Obama simply because of his skin color, but the majority are committed liberals who want to loose the Republican grasp on the White House. In a national election with no Hillary, where will they cast their vote? They certainly won't sit on it, and they certainly won't give it to McCain. Out of a lack of options, their votes will go to Obama, even if they don't like pulling the lever in his favor.

Obama's likely running mate, in my opinion, will be John Edwards. A Northern and a Southern candidate, both energetic and (at least publicly) committed to some pretty sweeping and, frankly, exciting social reforms, would excite the whole base of the Democratic party, while Edwards would wisely see this as a good stepping stool to the Presidency and would behave in an appropriately supportive fashion.

Of course, much remains yet to be seen. For tonight, I simply see confirmation of what I've known for weeks: the right person with the right temperament won, and the other person continues to be a classless and graceless loser, just as she's been for years.