Hillary Follows Through

As promised, Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race today and endorsed Obama. She pretty much did it the way she needed to do it, and as far as I've seen, her speech has been well received. Emotions have gotten high over the past few months, and in the heat of the moment, it's been fairly easy to forget how historic her candidacy has been. There have been women candidates before (from both parties), but they've never had a chance at the actual nomination, so even if they've had (and continued to have) serious politicians careers, they were never taken seriously as presidential contenders. That's something that can't be said about Hillary Clinton. And that's a significant barrier to have out of the way. The next women who run for president won't have to prove that their gender doesn't negate their viability. For my money, some of the best parts of her speech spoke directly to this reality:

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. To those who are disappointed that we couldn'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.

I don't know how long it will be up, but on his Web page at the moment, Obama has a nice tribute to her. If that's gone when you read this, here's a link to the statement he e-mailed in response to Hillary's endorsement.