It's been five months, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has finally come around to give her whole-hearted support for Sen. Barack Obama's bid for the White House.
Speaking to a crowd of about 1,000 Monday, at the St. Charles Convention Center in St. Charles, MO., Clinton told us that if we supported her in the primaries, we should support Obama at the polls tomorrow.
"Within living memory we can make a comparison between a democratic president and democratic policies and a republican president and republican policies and I think it's a comparison that's really important in these closing hours so I'm going to deputize all of you here to go out and share these facts with everybody," Clinton said.
In all, Clinton made a good speech that probably should have been given when she conceded in June, but credit where credit is due, she did a good job.
"Wouldn't it be nice to have once again a rising tide that would lift all boats including the row boats and the dinghies and not just the yachts?"
She also made a dig at Gov. Sarah Palin.
"We don't want to hear, 'drill, baby, drill,' we want to hear, 'jobs, baby, jobs!"
After the rally we spoke with three Obama supporters--Max Wright, first time voter from St. Peters, MO; Becky Jennings of Wright City, MO, a fifth grade teacher in the Wentzville School District who initially supported Clinton; and Mark Cebulski, a National Education Association (NEA) Executive Committee Member to Elect Barack Obama.
Wright said he started out supporting former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and looked at Ron Paul as well.
"Once Giuliani was out, I looked at Obama," Wright said. "I liked what I saw."
Jennings said that she supported Clinton in the primaries, but the important thing is to get a
democrat in the White House again.
"Bush's No Child Left Behind program has left things in such shambles," Jennings said. "The only thing McCain wants to do is continue Bush's program and add vouchers that won't help."
She said she's been a teacher for 13 years and has watched her students struggle to make it with the testing.
"That's not the way to teach them," she said.
Cebulski, of Cedarburg, WI said there are three main reasons why the NEA endorsed Obama. 1) he's the best chance the country has for great public schools, 2) he will work to fix NCLB and 3) he will not tax health care benefits.
Cebulski said that all the major presidential candidates were invited to speak with the NEA members in July 2007 and Obama did, McCain did not.
"It seems to me that if McCain wanted to play in the World Series, he would have at least stepped up to bat," he said.