Anger...Building...

The Clintonistas will never, ever stop attacking Barack Obama. They will never forgive him. They will never forget. They will hate him forever.

The work of the next phase of Clinton's career has been going on doggedly, and often with little notice, since she suspended her campaign on June 7. She's been a campaign emissary for Obama to the Sheet Metal Workers union; to Hispanics and others in New Mexico and Nevada; to older women in South Florida who still haven't quite accepted the loss of what for some of them may be their last chance to see a woman elected president. The speech Clinton made in departing from the race was, among Democratic activists, "probably the most seen, talked about, buzzed about speech of the campaign," says Mike Lux, a consultant for Democratic interest groups and an Obama supporter. It went over well, even among Obama loyalists.

That tends to be how Clinton does things. The public Clinton doesn't usually show hints of the private pain that burns inside.

The same cannot be said of some of her supporters, who can be expected to stage at least a few demonstrations of their fury at the outcome of the race and at what they perceive as repeated displays of disrespect that Obama has shown their hero. It is not lost on them that in selecting Joe Biden as his running mate, Obama chose a Washington insider who voted in favor of the Iraq war -- two of the sustained attacks on Clinton that Obama used to devastating effect during the primaries.

The television cameras will linger on angry and tearful Clinton delegates in the convention crowd. The commentators will no doubt take this as a demonstration of disunity -- and not a few will, of course, blame Clinton.

But it is usually the job of the party nominee to build unity once a vanquished rival has conceded and made the right gestures. Unless the loser happens to be a woman. Then it's just like high school, and she must do the work.

The sad truth is there is nothing Barack Obama can do that will redeem him in the eyes of a generation of Democrat women. They will never let this slide, and they are patient. In making sure he fails in 2008, they believe the party will turn to Hillary in 2012 and they will be proven right all along.

And until the Democrats realize that there is a cancer growing in the heart of the party, they won't understand why they lost this November.