No Woman, No Cry

No Woman, No Cry
As Hillary Clinton becomes an active Obama supporter, her backers across the state are ready to move on

By Chandra Niles Folsom


"Let's get on with it," Hillary Clinton reportedly conceded to members of her inner circle, the day after Barack Obama had clinched the nomination of his party for president.
The AP reported, on June 4, that the Illinois senator won a total of 2,154 delegates, and the senator from New York came in short at 1,919.5, with nearly 18 million votes cast in her favor. Then, four-days later, the trailblazing candidate did something that cynics believed she would never be willing to do—she publicly threw her full support behind Obama. The two former rivals made their first joint appearance on Friday, in Unity, New Hampshire, a town where each had received the same number of votes.
Point taken.
Speculation regarding Clinton's future in the party runs the gamut from running mate to Senate Majority Leader to Supreme Court Justice to governor of New York and back to president in either 2012 or 2116. Regardless of which role she gets cast in, most believe that Hillary Clinton will be sticking around for the second act.
"I got involved in her campaign from the day she announced, which was a bit of a departure because [Connecticut Sen. Chris] Dodd was in the race," says Susan Cocco, vice chair of the Clinton campaign in Connecticut. "There was an established buzz among women, labor, Latinos and the gay and lesbian community here, forming a natural constituency and these activists were willing to pull together to elect her. I also thought Hillary would make the best president."
Yet, in the end, most Democrats wanted to turn the page on the Clintons.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who served as national chair for the Clinton campaign, got behind her party's nominee once her candidate had dropped out of the race, but said publicly that her respect for Clinton only increased after the grueling campaign. Former U.S. Rep. Barbara Kennelly of Connecticut believes all Clinton supporters will follow Mikulski's lead, and shares her former colleague's admiration for the candidate.
"People said a woman may not be tough enough," says Kennelly, who now serves as president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. "She was tough enough. They said she can't raise money or talk about foreign affairs. She did."
Ellen Camhi, a National Committee member from Stamford, was the only state superdelegate who committed to Clinton early on. DNC member John Olsen committed later in the campaign. The other nine backed Obama or stayed out of the fray until near the end.
"Throughout the process I went back and forth between the two," says Nancy DiNardo, state Democratic chairperson and the last Connecticut super-delegate to pledge. "I remained uncommitted until the last week and then came out for Obama—but I like them both."
DiNardo, also chairperson of the Democratic Town Committee in Trumbull, thinks that Clinton did the right thing by hanging in until the race had concluded.
"I felt it was important for the campaign process to allow all the states to get involved and, as a result, thousands more people registered to vote," DiNardo says. "In Connecticut, 51.1 percent turned out to vote in the primaries—the highest we've ever had." (Obama won Connecticut with 50 percent of the vote to Clinton's 47 percent.)
But will diehard Hillaryites throw their support behind Obama? "Many on the Hillary side are upset and for good reason, but I'm sure when they look at the differences with McCain on the issues—especially for women—they will support Obama," says DiNardo. "I don't think the campaign did any harm to the party because the two Democratic candidates have such a similar stance on the issues."
A deep well of resentment exists among many older female voters who had invested their dreams in Clinton—envisioning the highest glass ceiling of all being shattered during their lifetimes.
"There is a time when you believe in someone and, when it doesn't work out, it takes some time to move forward," says Pat Russo of New Canaan, who worked on the grass-roots level for both of Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns and headed the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. "I have been spending a lot of time listening to women airing their grievances over the way Hillary was treated during the campaign."
Russo is currently second vice president of the Women's Campaign School at Yale.
"The sexism that existed in the media is really troubling to many Hillary supporters, but slowly they are coming around to support Obama," says Russo. "I supported her because I'm a feminist, agreed with her stand on most of the issues, and felt that she was qualified to be president. This country is well overdue for a strong woman in the White House."
"Russo says, "I believe it's in every woman's best interest to defeat McCain, who has an abysmal record on women's issues. I have worked too long and hard on those issues to see all the progress we've made get thrown away. But, I think by September women from all over will come around to support Obama, who has been very welcoming to women. He said that Hillary made him a better candidate, and I agree. Now, I'd like to see her leading the Senate."
It's been a long, sometimes challenging and often rewarding road from her days as the First Lady who "didn't stay at home baking cookies." Today, ranking 36th in seniority among 49 Senate Democrats, where does Clinton go from here?
"In her concession speech, Hillary demonstrated what a great candidate she was, not only in her support for Obama, but her belief in the bedrock values of the party," says Cocco. "A lot of people got that message. She's a legend and a legend in the making. She demonstrates how to put your talents into action and to stick with it."