{"id":58,"date":"2008-06-03T23:59:40","date_gmt":"2008-06-03T23:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html"},"modified":"2008-06-03T23:59:40","modified_gmt":"2008-06-03T23:59:40","slug":"obama-should-be-grateful-for-h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama Should Be Grateful for Hillary&#8217;s Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was assumed last night that Obama must have been fuming over Hillary Clinton\u2019s non-concession speech.  This was, the pundits noted, the one night when the national audience was watching, and she chose to withhold support.<br \/>\nI\u2019m not so sure.  Hillary\u2019s speech makes it much easier for Obama to not choose her as running mate.  If she had been gracious, helpful and effusive in praising the new party leader, Obama would be hardpressed to not choose her.   (After all, if you count the votes in Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa, and if you exclude Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Washington and Wyoming, and if you count all the votes for her in Michigan and none for him, and if you count Democrats abroad \u2013 then she may have narrowly won more popular votes than he did! )<br \/>\nSeriously, Obama will be under great pressure \u2013 not just from other pols but from the electoral logic, to choose her, whether he wants to or not. But her refusal to let him be the star of the show on Tuesday, combined with the veiled threats from Clinton aides earlier in the week that Obama had better choose her or else, means that if Obama were to select her now, he would look weak.   Whatever benefit she might bring cannot be worth creating the impression that he\u2019s malleable. The more she pushes, the more grudging her support, the more freedom Obama has to leave her off the ticket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was assumed last night that Obama must have been fuming over Hillary Clinton\u2019s non-concession speech. This was, the pundits noted, the one night when the national audience was watching, and she chose to withhold support. I\u2019m not so sure. Hillary\u2019s speech makes it much easier for Obama to not choose her as running mate.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obama Should Be Grateful for Hillary&#039;s Speech - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama Should Be Grateful for Hillary&#039;s Speech - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was assumed last night that Obama must have been fuming over Hillary Clinton\u2019s non-concession speech. This was, the pundits noted, the one night when the national audience was watching, and she chose to withhold support. I\u2019m not so sure. Hillary\u2019s speech makes it much easier for Obama to not choose her as running mate.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-03T23:59:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama Should Be Grateful for Hillary's Speech - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama Should Be Grateful for Hillary's Speech - Steven Waldman","og_description":"It was assumed last night that Obama must have been fuming over Hillary Clinton\u2019s non-concession speech. This was, the pundits noted, the one night when the national audience was watching, and she chose to withhold support. I\u2019m not so sure. Hillary\u2019s speech makes it much easier for Obama to not choose her as running mate.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2008-06-03T23:59:40+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html","name":"Obama Should Be Grateful for Hillary's Speech - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-06-03T23:59:40+00:00","dateModified":"2008-06-03T23:59:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/obama-should-be-grateful-for-h.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama Should Be Grateful for Hillary&#8217;s Speech"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}