On Saturday, June 7, 2008, Senator Hillary Clinton finally suspended her historic presidential campaign and conceded that Senator Barack Obama would be the Democratic party’s nominee.
Gone was the poll-tested “strength and experience” rhetoric, as Senator Clinton spoke emotionally and personally about what it meant for her to run as the first woman for president, and how this would affect American politics in the future. Clinton acknowledged that there was a glass ceiling for women’s advancement in politics, and alluded to the role that gender bias had played, both in her campaign and in the media’s coverage of it.
“Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it has about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before,” Senator Clinton said to thundering applause from her supporters, packed into the ornate National Building Museum, where she once danced with President Bill Clinton at his inaugural balls in 1993 and 1997.
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