By Patricia Murphy
Founder/Editor of citizenjanepolitics.com

As Hillary Clinton took to the podium last night, she met a roar of Democratic applause usually reserved for a nominee. Even after the longest primary in recent memory, after South Carolina insults, sniper fire, praise for “hard-working white Americans” and the emergence of a husband seemingly hard wired for verbal gaffes, the Democratic faithful greeted Hillary not just as one of their own, but as the best of their own.

As she spoke and the audience rose to its feet, Democratic staffers crept quietly along the aisles, distributing signs for them to wave “when you get the signal.” The signs read “Unity” on one side, and either “Hillary” or “Obama” on the other, and when the signal came, they created a sign-waving chanting mass of Democrats under a message of “Obama/ Hillary/ Unity.”

But the image raised the question that won’t go away: Why didn’t Obama pick this woman to be his running mate? Why didn’t he take this energy and add it to his own? What would the Pepsi Center have been like last night had the signs read “Obama Clinton’08″ instead of “Obama/ Clinton/ Unity?”

Clearly one reason Obama chose not even to consider a Vice President Clinton is the man who would share the Naval Observatory with her. You can’t blame Obama for not wanting a second man in the cabinet room answering to “Mr. President.” And how could he trust Bill Clinton to contain himself during a missile crisis when he couldn’t even keep a sock in it during the South Carolina primary?

We’ll know tonight if Obama made the right choice when we see Joe Biden, the man who was chosen for VP, and Bill Clinton, the man who may have cost his wife the slot. If Biden can electrify the crowd and her legions of female supporters as Hillary Clinton did, Obama chose right. If Bill Clinton holds back on his endorsement, if he listens to the voice that’s telling him the wrong person is inheriting his legacy, it will be evidence Obama will have made the right choice.

But if Biden falls flat, or accidentally calls his running mate “Barack America” or fails to connect with the women who will make up 55 percent of the electorate on November 4th, we’ll know that the Obama/ Clinton/ Unity moment in Denver was just a sign, not a sign of things to come.