For two die-hard Clinton supporters, speech persuades

DENVER -- Nadia Morgen and Michael Finkle, two Clinton delegates from Washington state, are about as passionate about Hillary Clinton as anyone at this convention.

Finkle, a lawyer, drafted the national petition signed by hundreds of Clinton supporters to allow Clinton a roll call vote on the floor tomorrow. Morgen signed it. Both had doubts about Barack Obama before Clinton's speech last night.

Not afterwards. The speech, they said, had moved their state's delegates to tears.

"I cried," said Morgen.

"You saw true greatness," Finkle said. "It was goosebump time. It was not her words, it was her conduct. I think that's why people were crying. It was what she exuded.... she truly exhorted us to come together, and when someone you respect that much and have worked that hard for says 'Let's unify,' how can that not reach you?"

Morgen said the confidence Clinton conveyed to the convention about Obama's ability to lead on the issues helped allay her concerns about whether Obama was qualified to be president.

"That she endorsed him as a co-worker means more to me than if she'd endorsed him as a friend," she said. Friendship, she said, implies a kind of obligation; a collegial relationship, she said, implies mutual respect.