Not in momentum, delegates, necessarily, but in her owning the right to lead. I voted for Obama yesterday in NYC, a difficult choice, but done out of some sense that HRC's electability was problematical, and admittedly, out of being influenced by the perception of his "tidal wave" effect. Not a consequential vote it seems in the end.
But I got a closer look at Hillary in the past two evenings, first during her Letterman appearance, and then at last night's speech.
ABC News carried good coverage, for the most part, of all the candidates speeches last night. I did not catch some of them, but I did hear McCain, Obama, Romney & Hillary. The content of the speeches of the first three?: We won, or we will win, or the "we've got the movement" meme.
But Hillary's speech was an inspiration, and pointed out to us how completely misguided are these negative, media promoted characterizations and talking points about her are. She was the only one who used the podium to lay out the challenges facing this country. The speech was full of content. Specific problems were spelled out and even ideas for fixing things were presented (or at least, inferred). I heard none of this from anyone else last night.
A few examples:
It’s about your lives, your families, your futures. It’s about the people who have shared their problems with me, looking for solutions, the mother whose insurance company won’t pay for her child’s treatment, the couple so determined to send their daughter to college, they’re willing to mortgage their home with a sub-prime second mortgage, the man who asked me what he was supposed to do after training the person who will take his job in another country, the veterans who’ve come home only to find they don’t have the health care, the compensation and the services they need.
It’s also about the people who want to seize America’s opportunities. It’s about the unions and businesses who are training people for green collar jobs.
It’s about the auto companies and the auto workers who want higher gas mileage cars so we can compete with the rest of the world.
or this:
they see tax cuts for the wealthy and they say, “Why not more?” They see $9 trillion in debt and say, “Why not trillions more?” They see five years in Iraq and say, “Why not 100 more? Well, they’ve got until January 20th, 2009 and not one day more.
I hate using the terminology, but that's damn presidential of her. Strong enough IMHO, to even overcome the phantoms of "her negatives" that are so avidly being circulated out there.
I have always been of a mind to strongly support whomever the nominee will be, but HRC has been generating some real excitement this week and, in my opinion, her mojo is steadily rising. I would be more than happy to go to bat for her should she win it.