Senator Clinton's Concession Speech

Hillary Clinton delivered the last words of the primary campaign today, addressing her supporters at the National Building Museum in Washington and providing her supporters with the best aesthetics of her campaign. In her speech, she concentrated on four themes: thanking her supporters, endorsing Senator Obama, calling for Democratic unity, and addressing the historic nature of a woman running for president i.e. the gender elements of the campaign.

Like other concession speeches, such as Al Gore's in 2000, it was well written and well delivered. Unfortunately for Gore in 2000 and Clinton today, both candidates delivered their speech after the election was settled. For some reason, maybe because the pressure is off, candidates can deliver outstanding concession speeches when they were not as good on the stump during the campaign. If only the candidates could deliver that type of speech on the stump, the campaign may have done better.

The strength of the speech occurs in the final two sections where Clinton calls for unity and addresses the gender aspects of her campaign. When discussing unity, she did a very good job of standing up for her principles of the Democratic party and Senator Obama while not compromising her beliefs. Unfortunately, during the speech, it is not clear if her supporters desire the unity Senator Clinton addressed. Besides the tension in the race and how close Senator Clinton finished to Senator Obama, it must have been tough for her to deliver this section since she did not want to leave the race and, according to Politico, her supporters forced her hand about the endorsement. Yet, through all of this, even Senator Clinton declared, "Yes We Can."

As for the gender aspect of the speech, she discussed cracking the glass ceiling but not cracking it. The speech features the Democratic idea of progress where her candidacy is another step (abolition, suffrage) expanding the right and ability of people to participate in political life. She attempts to connect this progress with unity as she argues:

So I want to say to my supporters, when you hear people saying – or think to yourself – “if only” or “what if,” I say, “please don’t go there.” Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.

Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next President and I hope and pray that all of you will join me in that effort.

This quote is reminiscent of RFK's remarks, "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

For Senator Clinton, it was a very good speech, one of her best. It has been very well received and may help to mend the divisions within the party.