From the London Financial Times: "Historians of party conventions point out that their two primary purposes are to set a course for the general election and to demonstrate party unity to the nation. They also point out that candidates who lose presidential elections have often emerged from a divided convention. … Al Gore in 2000 … was overshadowed by none other than Bill Clinton. “The Clintons have done this before,” said the senior Democrat. “And they are capable of doing it again.”

-- From Politico.com: One senior Obama supporter said the Clinton associates negotiating on her behalf act like “Japanese soldiers in the South Pacific still fighting after the war is over.” A prominent Obama backer said some of Clinton’s lieutentants negotiating with the Obama team are “bitter enders” who presume that, rather than the Clintons reconciling themselves to Obama’s victory, it is up to Obama to accommodate them. In fact, some senior veterans of Clinton’s presidential campaign do believe this. “He has not fully reconciled,” said one political operative close to the Clintons, “and he has not demonstrated that he accepts the Clintons and the Clinton wing of the party.”

But then there is this from the NY Times: "More than half of the delegates that Mrs. Clinton won in the primaries now say they are enthusiastic supporters of Mr. Obama, and they also believe he will win the presidential election in November, the poll found. Three in 10 say they support Mr. Obama but have reservations about him or they support him only because he is the party’s nominee. Five percent say they do not support him yet.

"Forty-two percent of Mrs. Clinton’s pledged delegates surveyed say they would vote for her. But 43 percent say they would vote for Mr. Obama while another 15 percent have not decided what they will do when Mrs. Clinton’s name is put into nomination.
The poll of 970 Democratic delegates selected at random of the 4,439 total delegates was conducted July 16-Aug. 17 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points."

And there is this Associated Press story that said Hillary will release her delegates Wednesday before the roll call on the floor.

Norma Fisher-Flores, one of two El Paso "superdelegates" -- U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes is the other – said that "I've always been a big Hillary supporter but for party unity I'd have no problem going with Obama."

She said she was initially disappointed that Hillary was not considered for vice presidential nominee, but "I got over that real quick. I mean what can you do? I looked at the other choices and thought Biden would be excellent."

I asked her why Hillary Clinton had not released her delegates earlier.

"That’s what I don’t understand. I have to wait and see what she says. She's been supporting Obama all this time after she conceded why didn’t she release us?

"You're seeing people who are for Obama, who are for Hillary. People aren’t speaking. I'm not going to have any of that. Wednesday will be when we all make our final decision. Some of us will support Sen. Obama. I have always voted Democrat -- not always straight ticket – but I will not cross over to the Republican side."