I planned not to insert a picture here for a few reasons:
1. This moment in history was an ignominious one coming, as it did, the day after the 88th anniversary of the 19th Amendment;
2. Hillary looked tense and stressed when I watched this on TV (Tivoed because the DNC scheduled it to happen while most Americans anywhere were at work, not home to watch). I did not expect her to photograph this well. But she still looked beautiful (as usual), and the picture is interesting.
The first and most important thing to understand if you are one of the young people new to this whether via Senator Obama's voter recruitment efforts or you are a Hillblazer, this is not the way roll calls nominate party candidates. Voting is done during prime time and might go past midnight if necessary until a candidate has the requisite number of votes. States allot the delegate votes according to commitments resulting from the state primaries the first time through the roll. It is not unusual, however, for states to pass or to yield to a state that has already been called and passed. After the first roll call, then delegates begin to shift votes. I have never seen a roll call like this one, and I have been watching since Adlai Stevenson was nominated. I was very young and impressionable. That is why it is important for young people to understand that this roll call vote was a scripted sham. Normally neither candidate would have been present on the floor. That Senator Clinton was expected to play the role she did (and did so well under the circumstances) was a violation, if not of the rules, of courtesy and respect for her privacy. She should not have been on the floor to see and hear voting going for or against her.
What you witnessed was history, but of the most shameful kind in a purported democracy in a party that calls itself The Democratic Party. Hillary, once again complied with the wishes (or orders) of party leadership as a means of unifying the party. She did it graciously, with resolve and strength. That she had to be there and do that at all was insulting and abusive to a candidate who ran a genuine race. The nomination process you saw was pure theater.
Now for the interesting part: The four straight-faced dudes behind her facing front, and the one looking left right behind her head are probably not delegates. From the look of them, I am thinking that they are her Secret Service detail. That makes me feel better. See, because of Bill, she continues to get Secret Service protection. It's good to see that they were there on the floor watching her back.
Another home-run by Hillary. She smiled, hit her marks, and delivered her lines like Meryl Streep. But if you believed for a minute that it was real, well there's this beautiful bridge in her state that's on the market.... Did it unify the party? What a question! They trashed our votes!
