I have decided I love Montana's governor Brian Schweitzer, whose speech last night was amazing. Loved it. Let's hear it for eco-activism - from a rancher. (Or it least a guy who dresses like one.)

Of course, the main stage event was Hillary Clinton's speech. A clear success, this speech was probably the best of her life. She did the job of explicitly stating the need for her supporters to vote for Obama, particularly with her poignant question, "Were you in this campaign just for me?" She provided the catharsis her die-hards needed while calling them to task for their role in shaping the future of the nation. The subtext, that the stakes are higher than their feelings - or hers - in this election, was key.

Much has been said about repairing the rift between the Clintons and those of us in the Black community who feel betrayed by the racialist language her campaign employed in the primary election. While I think Hillary's speech was a baby step in that direction, and Bill's speech tonight might be another, the fact is Obama does not need the Clintons to make amends with African Americans before November.

There are several impediments to authentic healing before the general election: the sense of entitlement expressed by her primary campaign, Bill's need to be spotlighted as the most powerful Alpha Male in every room he enters, and the clear goal of the Clintons to solidify the image of their family as a political dynasty. In addition, because Obama has the Black vote, the work toward real Clinton-African American reconciliation can wait until later. Right now, Obama needs the Clintons to campaign - to genuinely campaign with heartfelt truth - in rural communities in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Popping down to Florida wouldn't hurt either.

While I was energized and moved by Hillary last night, I will be watching closely to see how she follows up not only with her supporters, but also with those "hard-working Americans, white Americans" she exploited as political pawns when she played early 20th century race card after race card during her primary campaign.

The history of coalition v conflict between white women and African Americans, and the Clintonian perpetuation of it throughout this presidential election, must be addressed and, hopefully, finally put to rest. That's part of the change so many of us would like to see during an Obama presidency. That will take some time - a good 8 years, perhaps.

After all, these fragile coalitions shattered by the successful divide and conquer of dispossessed women and people of color traces back to Abolition and Suffrage as well as to Civil Rights and the Second Wave. We, all of us, have much work to do to insure that destruction of natural alliances doesn't happen again. I hope women supporters of Hillary will be open to that discourse. I also hope they will be willing to confront their own racism, which has manifested in their tenacious insistence that Hillary somehow be privileged over the Black man who won. In the meantime, we have a constitution to protect, a balance of power to reestablish, a few Supreme Court Justices to appoint, and key rulings to uphold. These issues must take precedence. We must see Obama over McCain in November. Hil supporters: You must move on and focus on that goal. You have to move on, just as Black folk always have.

Black folk have moved on from 2000 Hanging Chad Florida and 2004 Ohio and Florida - elections that were essentially ripped from the grip of the American people through the silencing of the Black vote in non-military coups.

And because we have had to get over the loss of these stolen elections, working and middle class whites have to get over race in this election. That is the only way they will be able to vote their economic realities - not their aspirations - this time around.

(Indeed, we have had to get over racism and resentments in every day of each Black life just to survive for the past 400 years. Now, it's time for everyone else to carry this burden.)

Let's be real: concerns about the Exotic Other ('Obama's so different! So unknown! Scary.') barely veil the lingering impact of White Supremacy on the white mind. It's time, in the freakin' 21st century, for white folk to get over this mind trip. Realize how using identity politics to compel you to vote against your own best interests - against your household finances, your children's education, and the likelihood that someone you love might fight in a war the Republicans lied to us all about to get started - is a tactic that is centuries old and must end now. Just as non-land owning whites were further disenfranchised by 300 years of an unpaid labor force that benefited only the rich, but were hoodwinked into feeling better about themselves because they, at least, weren't Black, white folk today have been tricked into voting into office the very people who have allowed Wall Street to bundle and sell our mortgages, who have driven up the cost of our gasoline and warmed the globe just a little bit more, who have reduced our access to student grants and increased the burden of debilitating loans, and have made average Americans actually believe there were weapons of mass destruction.

And you're not going to vote for the other guy again this time just because the person who has the best policies in place to improve our lives and get us out of the mess Bush and his buddies have made is African American?

Really?

The superficialities of race and gender have prevented us from achieving our greatest potential as Americans. The substantive content of our real lives - lives that, across gender and race lines, are more alike than different - will improve if we move into the brighter future that waits for us like a promise. I hope the Clintons will genuinely engage the difficult task of getting us to that mountaintop. I hope we all will.