Progress Illinois

A report today from the South Bend Tribune:

They were, once upon a time, opposing regiments of the same army.

The Sen. Hillary Clinton campaign and the Sen. Barack Obama campaign: two groups of local volunteers fervently working for their respective Democrat, each trying to get a little more support than the other team.

On Thursday night, party officials brought the two sides together for pizza and chatter in hopes, pundits would say, of unifying the party perhaps divided by a contentious primary campaign.

In hopes? Where has the media been, South Bend resident Vera Peele said. "I was unified from the beginning," she said. "I'm a Democrat."

There are some who were quoted in reports immediately after Clinton stopped campaigning as saying if they couldn't vote for Clinton they just wouldn't vote for president.

Chalk that up to emotion in the heat of the moment, said Bev Shelton of South Bend, who supported Clinton during the primary. "Sometimes you're like a volcano, and it erupts," she said.

But now it's about getting a Democrat elected to the White House, Shelton said, wearing a button that says "Do not vote Republican."

Don't assume people who were angry after Clinton's exit from the campaign will remain that way, said Pat McQuade, also a Clinton supporter in the primary campaign.

"We are more than one emotion," she said. "Sometimes people are pigeonholed into one specific response. Loss is grief."

But people get over it, she said. They move on.

(H/T Blue Indiana)