June 6, 2008 4:17 PM
Her way: Clinton backs Obama -- to cheers and jeers
By M.E. Sprengelmeyer
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama drew a mix of applause and boos from her supporters here Saturday, hinting it will take more than one day and one speech to bring Democratic Party unity after the hard-fought presidential primaries.
Clinton was flanked by giant, stone pillars inside the atrium of the National Building Museum as she pledged to continue battling for issues like universal health care and an end to the war in Iraq.
"The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand, we should take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next President of the United States," Clinton said.
The anticipated endorsement drew mostly applause.
But a consistent chorus of boos also echoed from the balconies and the back of the room, as some of Clinton's most passionate supporters are still bitter about the primaries, threatening to vote for Republican Sen. John McCain or stay home.
"I can't do a flip just like that," 85-year-old Jim Brooks of Washington, D.C., said shortly after the speech. "This woman is tremendous. She is a great woman. But Obama? How many mentors did he need before he became a man? I don't think he has reached that point yet."
In an overflow area in the back of the atrium, each time Clinton sounded a note of defiance, supporter Carol Reich, 59, pumped her fist in the air and cheered. But when Clinton repeatedly offered kind words for her former rival, Obama, Reich loudly booed her disapproval.
"Hillary really was the one who had the direction," Reich said after the speech, mocking Obama's "Change" mantra. "It's a five-letter word, but what's the direction?" she said.
Reich said she'd sooner vote for McCain than back Obama.
"In (McCain's) past record, he has been rather liberal. He has liberal qualities," Reich said. "Do I think he'd be another George Bush? Absolutely not."
After declining to concede the contest after the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday, Clinton's goal on Saturday was to bring a belated sense of party unity.
The crowd, including her supporters and a smattering of people in Obama t-shirts, had been subdued - hardly jubilant - during several hours waiting for Clinton's arrival. The standard campaign trail sound track, including a mix of pop songs, disco and rock tunes, blared over the sound system. But there was no dancing, not even much swaying, as one Bon Jovi song blared the chorus: "Who says you can't go home?"
When Clinton finally arrived the traditional one-hour behind schedule, she took the stage with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea Clinton.
She started her speech with a shrug: "Well, this isn't exactly the party I planned, but I sure like the company."
At first she offered the crowd defiance, saying "my commitment to you and the progress we seek is unyielding."
She got some of her biggest cheers mentioning the 18 million people who voted for her - an allusion to her long-standing claim, disputed by Obama's counting methods, that she had gotten the most popular votes in the primaries.
Soon, however, she gave a standing-room-only crowd of journalists the news angle they had been expecting: an endorsement for Obama that means he can now stroll, rather than sprint, the 2 ½ months left before the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
She said he had run an "extraordinary" campaign, praised his rise from community organizer to presidential front-runner, and urged her supporters to get behind him.
"I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me," she said, drawing the same mix of cheers and jeers.
Clinton seemed to be speaking directly to Obama skeptics in her fan base when she talked about how in the past forty years, Democrats had held the White House only three terms, including her husband's eight years in the 1990s.
"Just think how much more progress we could have made over the past 40 years if we had a Democratic president," Clinton said. "Think about the lost opportunities of these past seven years - on the environment and the economy, on health care and civil rights, on education, foreign policy and the Supreme Court."
Democratic Party leaders know they still have work to do to bring the party together after the long, sometimes bruising campaign. But Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., one of Clinton's earliest supporters, told reporters it was "a good day" for party unity.
"There was no hesitation, there was no bitterness. There was no anger," Schumer said. "There was sadness, but then there was just, 'Let's move forward for the good of the country.' So I felt very good about it."
He downplayed the boos from the back of the crowd.
"Well, you know, look. Hillary is telling her supporters, 'Gather behind the Obama banner.' Ninety-nine percent will," Schumer said. "There may be a few that are bitter. But what I have found in most of these campaigns, one good thing is Democrats do come together, because the difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is not close to as great as the difference between either of them and John McCain. And we cannot afford another four years of Bush-like policies."
As she ended her historic campaign, Clinton set a new standard for women seeking the highest office in the land. She sounded another defiant note when referring to "barriers and biases," and the sexism that many of her supporters feel was rampant in media coverage of the contest.
Referring to the latest milestone for female astronauts, she said, "If we can blast 50 women into space, we will some day launch a woman into the White House."
But not this year. And some of her supporters said they were ready to follow Clinton's lead and work for the Democratic Party's man, Obama, in November.
"I know what we have to do," said Effie Laman of Texas. "Regardless of who the leader is, we've got to get in there for our common ideals."
All photos by M.E. Sprengelmeyer
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