Hillary calls for party unity and throws her support behind Obama

Sen. Hillary Clinton left little room for people to question whether she is a “team player” when she took to the stage in Denver last night to throw her support behind the first African American who will win an endorsement from a major party. It was a speech that will take a rightful place in history. Hear more of her speech here. Get the latest reaction from the floor of the convention at Pamela On Politics.

The Ohio Democratic lawmaker was revered by her constituents

Colleagues, friends and family of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) are mourning her death. As a avid supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Cleveland-based congresswoman seemed to have lost considerable clout among her Barack Obama-loving constituents. But she will be remembered as loyal, progressive and productive. Read more about what her fellow Congress members had to say at Pamela On Politics. More about how brain aneurysms affect Blacks and women more at Vital Signs. Send your condolences below.

Hillary Clinton just can’t believe that she is not her party’s nominee

Pamela On Politics: Now that the loser of the Democratic nomination for president has secured her primetime television spot during the party convention and wrangled a way to have her name placed in nomination, it’s not clear if one should admire her tenacity or pity her inability to accept defeat. More at Pamela On Politics.

Clinton leads the charge for Obama. Amid reports that Sen. Hillary Clinton is still holding on to the hope of wresting the nomination from Sen. Barack Obama, she told a horde of screaming Obama supporters Friday that the Illinois senator is her candidate for president. Anybody who’s tired of the policies of President Bush, she said, should vote for Obama too. “Anyone who voted for me or caucused for me has so much more in common with Sen. Obama than Sen. McCain,” Clinton told the crowd in Henderson, Nev., her first appearance with Obama since June. Over the weekend, rumors surfaced that Clinton’s name could be called in a roll-call vote on the floor of the Democratic Convention in Denver later this month. If that did occur and Clinton was to receive overwhelming support, some speculated, she would be obligated to bow to the will of the people and head into battle as the Democratic champion against McCain. Clinton has given no such indications, at least in public appearances.” Sen. Obama needs all of us, he needs us working for him,” she said, urging folks to register. “Remember who we were fighting for in my campaign,” she said, praising “his passion, his determination, his grace and his grit,” and she reminded that “we may have started on two separate paths, but we are on one journey now.”

It appears as though the Clinton-Obama rift is all but over in Beantown

Boston ’s big ballers broke out their checkbooks Monday night and turned Sen. Barack Obama’s 47th birthday bash into a big-time fundraiser. There was no sign of the division between the Democratic camps of Sen. Hillary Clinton and Obama, which generated so much intra-party angst during the primaries. In fact, former Clinton supporters accounted for $700,000 all by themselves. The total pot was expected to exceed $5 million, The Boston Globe reported. About 850 people showed up for the event at the posh State Room near Faneuil Hall. Some 250 of them paid $15,000 each – $28,500 per couple – to break bread with the senator following the initial meet and greet. The private birthday-campaign party was Obama’s first appearance in Beantown since clinching the Democratic nomination in June. Although he landed the endorsement of New England’s most popular politician – Sen. Edward Kennedy – Clinton won the most votes in the primary. “We all wanted to make a dramatic statement that we’re with him every step of the way,” said Steven Grossman, a leading Clinton fund-raiser and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.