CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Posted at 6:20 p.m. ET

Ms. Hillary's speech did not pacify the most passionate of her loyalists.  The term "kamikaze" comes to mind.  The Washington Post reports that bitterness endures, and that travel plans are being made.  Hard to know if this will last, but clearly the Obama camp will not have a complete "one land, one leader" moment.  There's one land, leader to be decided:

They listened, rapt, to a 20-minute speech that many proclaimed the best she had ever delivered, hoping her words could somehow unwind a year of tension in the Democratic Party. But when Clinton stepped off the stage and the standing ovation faded into silence, many of her supporters were left with a sobering realization: Even a tremendous speech couldn't erase their frustrations.

Despite Clinton's plea for Democrats to unite, her delegates remained divided as to how they should proceed.

There was Jerry Straughan, a professor from California, who listened from his seat in the rafters and shook his head at what he considered the speech's predictability. "It's a tactic," he said. "Who knows what she really thinks? With all the missteps that have taken place, this is the only thing she could do. So, yes, I'm still bitter."

Truth be told, this happens fairly often at conventions.  At the 1976 Republican convention, Ronald Reagan conceded defeat to President Gerald R. Ford, but, in his speech, barely noted Ford's existence.  Jimmy Carter, unblessed memory, won the election.  And at the 1980 Democratic convention, Edward R. Kennedy threw in the towel in his bid to take the nomination from Carter, but ice formed on his lips as he did it.  Ronald Reagan won the election.

Divided parties suffer from the divisions, and often lose by narrow margins.  In 1968, a bitterly divided Democratic Party nominated Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey for the top job, only to see him lose by a whisker to the never-popular Richard M. Nixon, by then a political retread.  The Dems who stayed home on election day made the difference.

So unity can count - a lesson both parties might note.

Some Hillaristas aren't listening:

For Clinton's supporters, it was difficult to accept her speech as the public finale of her campaign, because this moment once held such tremendous potential. Shelby Leary, a delegate from West Virginia, stood to watch a video tribute to Clinton's success as a trailblazer and then chanted "Hillary" for 30 seconds with the rest of the crowd. Anne Price, from Washington state, wore a dozen Clinton buttons and wiped tears from her eyes.

It seemed a particularly resonant moment Tuesday night, which marked both Women's Equality Day and the 88th anniversary of women's suffrage.

Some will, as Cold War reporters liked to say about people who lived in dictatorships, vote with their feet:

"I hate Obama so much that I'm going to devote as much time to McCain as I did to Hillary," said Adita Blanco, a Democrat from Edward, Okla., who has never voted for a Republican. "Obama has nothing. He has no experience. The Democratic Party doesn't care about us. You couldn't treat [Clinton] any worse."

Perhaps the best example of the persistent divide in the Democratic Party came after Clinton's speech Tuesday night. The lights went down in the Pepsi Center, and some influential Democrats left downtown for good. They planned to head for the airport and fly home, long before Obama accepts the nomination in a speech at Invesco Field on Thursday night.

Clinton will hold a private meeting with her top financial advisers Wednesday, and many donors plan to leave immediately afterward. Terence R. McAuliffe, Clinton's campaign chairman and the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, also plans to leave before Obama's speech. Many of the women from 18 Million Voices, Fiechter's pro-Clinton group, booked tickets for Wednesday and Thursday because "we really are taking a position of being indifferent to Obama," Fiechter said.

Didn't Aretha Franklin sing about R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  Not too much respect for the nominee from many of the Hillary delegates.  And,as noted below, Bill will be skipping the nominee's speech. 

The key point, to be determined, is how much effect all this will have in November.

August 27, 2008.