Election 2008

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made their truce official today, with a joint appearance in Unity, New Hampshire. Let's just hope it works out better than the Treaty of Versaille. The punditry seemed to focus most on the stagecraft of it all, which included matching outfits (blue pantsuit for her, blue tie for him), sort of like that tour the Beastie Boys did in jumpsuits. And of course, it was in a town called "Unity." Thank god they didn't pick "Bitter Recriminations, New Hampshire." Not a good message to send.

As for the speeches? Our liveblog below...

1:10 A man wearing suspenders—unity suspenders—is at the podium. In the background is a 20 foot sign that says "UNITY." Perhaps Geraldine Ferraro will be jumping off it in a few minutes.

1:11 MSNBC plays a clip of McCain commenting on the event. He looks very subdued. If not for the gray hair, this could be mistaken for one of his POW hostage tapes in the '70s.

1:14 Obama and Clinton enter, working the rope line. Secret Service very watchful, but hard to tell if they're guarding Obama from the crowd or from Hillary.

1:20 Hillary and Obama are on the podium. Andrea Mitchell calls them "the new first couple." That would be a truly non-anti-climactic ending to this whole thing. Though it's hard to imagine Michelle being cool with that. Bill on the other hand...

1:21One of the MSNBC ladies says "free at last." Not sure what it means, but sometimes when news people see a black person, they just start randomly making black references.

1:22 Hillary's up first. Barack Obama is half sitting on a bar stool to her right in an "I'm pretty studly" pose. Hillary is smiling like they force fed her a Percocet on the plane.

1:25 Hillary recounts how they "each began a journey," and "traversed America" together. No mention of the crazed dog named Bill who was barking at everybody from the backseat throughout the journey.

1:27 Hillary says her mission is "to elect Barack Obama President of the United States. Somewhere Lanny Davis is balled up in a corner, rocking and crying softly to himself.

1:32 Hillary mentions being in public service for "four decades." That's gone up a decade in the past month. But that's just because she works so hard; one month of Hillary's work is worth 12 months of yours.

1:33 Hillary says that during that time there have been ten elections and "Democrats won three of those." Here's comes the reminder that her husband was president. Yes, Hillary, we remember. You've mentioned this before. Your drawing is very pretty. If we put it on the fridge, will you finally shut up about it?

1:34 Hillary says that in Unity "Barack got 107 votes and I got 107 votes," and that "each vote cast was a prayer." Though of course, the ones for Obama were prayers to Allah, but she classily doesn't mention that.

1:36 The McCain part now. She's auditioning for the attack dog portion of the vice president's duties.

1:43 Speech over. Hillary and Obama hug. Now they're practically making out. Someone's going to have to get a garden hose out if this keeps up.

1:45 Obama begins. He looks happy. Maybe it's relief that Hillary didn't push him out of the plane.

1:47 Someone in the audience says Hillary "rocks." and Obama repeats it: "Yes, she rocks, she rocks." He's never seemed whiter. He might have just won Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona.

1:50 Obama mentions that Hillary showed that women can "do everything the boys can do and do it in heels." Hillary laughs. Obama looks at her and says he doesn't know "how you do it in heels." Maybe that's the one thing Rudy could have brought to the campaign.

1:52 You know it's kind of a boring speech when "wind and solar and bio fuels" is an applause line.

2:01 Obama finishes. They're arm in arm in Unity.

2:02 Andrea Mitchell says "the body language was perfect!" And keep in mind, she's had sex with Alan Greenspan.

Posted by: Stephen Sherrill      I’m a fan of Stephen Sherrill