I love Hillary. I always have. When everyone hated her I held a great admiration for her. When people began to open up to her I loved her. And now that she has run for president and is now conceding and standing behind Obama in support of his campaign as president of the United States I love her. I have never been fickle about how I feel for Hillary and something in me always looked up to her and still does.
She did good for us women. She taught us so much in this race. My daughter will grow up not finding it odd at all that a woman can run for president. And hopefully in my daughter's lifetime, there will be a woman president that is deserving of the title and honor of being our president. If I don't see the day, I know my daughter will.
She conceded and stands behind Obama 100%. I do as well. Here is the article from the New York Times:
ENDING HER BID, CLINTON BACKS OBAMA
WASHINGTON — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton brought her campaign for the White House to an end on Saturday with a rousing farewell to thousands of supporters here and an emotional and unequivocal call for her voters to get behind Senator Barack Obama, the man who defeated her for the Democratic nomination.
For 28 minutes, standing alone on a stage in the historic National Building Museum, Mrs. Clinton spoke not only about the importance of electing Mr. Obama, but also about the extent to which her campaign was a milestone for women. She urged women who had supported her — who had turned out at her headquarters, flocked to her rallies and poured into the polls to vote for her — not to take the wrong lesson from her loss.
“You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States,” she said. “To those who are disappointed that we couldn't’t go all of the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if, in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.”
At that point the cheers, mostly from women, swelled so loud that Mrs. Clinton’s remaining words could not be heard
Mrs. Clinton first mentioned Mr. Obama seven minutes into her speech. But when she did, she swept away any doubt — created by her speech on Tuesday night, when he claimed the nomination — that she was ready to concede or that she had any hesitancy about endorsing him or his qualifications to be president.
“The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand, is to take our energy, our passion, our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States,” Mrs. Clinton said, her voice echoing across the stone walls of the building where she and President Bill Clinton danced at Inaugural Balls in 1993 and 1997. “Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him and throw my full support behind him.”
It was a dramatic — and at times theatrical — end to a candidacy that transfixed the country. Many of her supporters watched, some weeping, turning out to witness and appreciate the history of this latest turn in the Clintons’ story. If it was a clearly personal moment for Mrs. Clinton, it was a political one as well, as she attempted to marshal her large following on Mr. Obama’s behalf.
“I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me,“ Mrs. Clinton said. “I have served in the Senate with him for four years. I have been in this campaign with him for 16 months. I have stood on the stage and gone toe-to-toe with him in 22 debates. I’ve had a front-row seat to his candidacy, and I have seen his strength and determination, his grace and his grit.”
“I want to take all our energy and all our strength and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama as our next president of the United States,” said Mrs. Clinton, who, as she noted in the speech, drew more than 18 million votes that she can now steer toward Mr. Obama.
Most in the crowd roared their approval when Mrs. Clinton mentioned Mr. Obama’s name, though there were boos and jeers from the third-level balcony that hung over the hall. Some of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters tried to drown out those boos by clapping louder.
Throughout the campaign, Mrs. Clinton steered away from presenting her candidacy in historic terms or in the context of feminism. But not on Saturday. The theme was emphasized almost from the start of the speech to the gripping parting tableau, when she raised the hands of her daughter, Chelsea, and her mother, Dorothy Rodham.
“Now, think how much progress we’ve already made,” she said. “When we first started, people everywhere asked the same questions. Could a woman really serve as commander in chief? Well, I think we answered that one. Could an African-American really be our president? And Senator Obama has answered that one.”
Mrs. Clinton was as relaxed and expansive as she has been at any point on the campaign trail. In talking about all the reasons she thought Democrats should rally around Mr. Obama, she lapsed into a rushed preacher’s cadence, ending each refrain with “and that’s why we need to elect Barack Obama our president.
She even embraced without any hesitation, Mr. Obama’s campaign theme, grinning broadly as she said, “So today I am standing with Senator Obama to say: ‘Yes, we can!"
Yet the most intense and passionate moments of the speech came when Mrs. Clinton was talking about breaking barriers and the historic role that both she and Mr. Obama have played in an election that was a competition between an African-American and a woman and that is almost certain to end in August with the nomination of the first African-American by a major party for the White House.
“Together, Senator Obama and I achieved milestones essential to our progress as a nation, part of our perpetual duty to form a more perfect union,” she said. “Now, on a personal note, when I was asked what it means to be a woman running for president, I always gave the same answer, that I was proud to be running as a woman, but I was running because I thought I’d be the best president. But I am a woman and, like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious, and I want to build an America that respects and embraces the potential of every last one of us.”
Mr. Obama, who watched the speech over the Internet while relaxing and spending time with his family in Chicago, paid particular tribute to that message in a statement thanking her for her support.
“I honor her today for the valiant and historic campaign she has run,“ he said. “She shattered barriers on behalf of my daughters and women everywhere, who now know that there are no limits to their dreams.”
There were never discussions about Mr. Obama attending the event in Washington, Obama aides said, because they did not want to detract from Mrs. Clinton’s day.
And the day did belong to her alone. She took the stage without an introduction, and neither her husband nor her daughter spoke. Instead, they remained at the side of the stage, smiling and joining in the applause, though Mrs. Clinton, in bringing her speech to a close, paid a particularly strong tribute to her husband, whose reputation was hardly enhanced by this campaign.
Before she arrived — about 45 minutes late — and after her speech ended and she slowly worked her way through the room, the sound system played Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family,” a title that may perhaps capture a bit of wishful thinking in Democratic circles these days.
The event was in many ways a traditional end to a campaign that never had a traditional beginning: Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy in January 2007 by posting an announcement on the Internet.
The speech was written by Mrs. Clinton working with one of her speech-writers, Sarah Hurwitz, over the past few days, with help from Mr. Clinton, among others.
As the temperature climbed to the 90s, people were lined up outside the museum hours before Mrs. Clinton was to speak.
By noon, when the event was scheduled to start, thousands of people filled the stately hall, peering over the rails of the balconies surrounding the room.
The crowd, which was also made up of staff members and friends of the Clinton family, was overwhelmingly white, largely female and dotted with children, many on their parents’ shoulders.
Sarah Denault, 16, said she awoke at 3:25 a.m. for the ride from her home in Howell, N.J. “I just wanted to say ‘Thank you, Hillary,’” said Ms. Denault, whose T-shirt said just that. “I figure we’re living history, to borrow a phrase from Hillary.”
A few feet from where Mrs. Clinton spoke, Seth Goldstein stood with his 12-year-old daughter, Chloe. After volunteering for Mrs. Clinton in seven states, Mr. Goldstein said he wanted his daughter to see what he called a graceful departure.
“She is leaving on her own terms,” said Mr. Goldstein, 46. “She had a tremendous campaign. I’m sad she’s leaving, but I think she’d make an excellent vice president.”
Friends and associates said they fully expected Mrs. Clinton to throw herself into campaigning for Mr. Obama, though she will also work strenuously to thank her own supporters, donors and staff members.
In the near term, associates say, Mrs. Clinton will return to the Senate and immerse herself in signature issues like health care. She will resist the inevitable questions about whether she’ll run again for president — which, given who she is, will continue to be a subtext for how many people view her every move.
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