Hillary Clinton's concession speech Saturday was largely viewed as a personal appeal to her millions of female supporters to vote for Barack Obama and support him as passionately as they've stood for Hillary. Yes the grieving is real, but I think mourning women is an angle the media loves to cover and we need to work hard to refute it because it makes us look myopic. Anna Greenberg writes,

the dominant narrative has been the angry white women who are holding back from Barack Obama. Some even suggest that John McCain can make a major play for these disaffected Clinton supporters. The problem with this narrative is that it is mostly wrong, ignoring history and failing to understand Obama's real challenge among women voters....Obama's real struggle is with white blue collar women voters -- the same group that challenged Kerry. Currently, Obama trails McCain among white women without a college education by 19 points, 37 to 56 percent.

The solution? Greenberg writes: "First, Obama needs to communicate with them about who he is, including his values and his life story. He and his family actually have more in common with these women than they know. Second, he needs to address their real economic anxieties."

Author Lisa Witter writes movingly of her personal conflict over Clinton's loss,

I know I’m not the only woman feeling incredibly disappointed about “missing out our first shot at the top job. I say “our” first shot because Hillary became a symbol for me of all our collective struggles to break glass ceilings. Watching her fight brought sweet justice to the man on an airplane a month ago who asked me if I was my boss’s secretary and to the colleague who insinuated that I got my executive job because I was a young “attractive” woman. When she lost, I felt I lost a bit. I don’t deny it.

So now the news cycle is buzzing with commentary on what Senator Obama needs to do to woo away Senator Clinton’s loyal feminist base. It’s a good question, but it can’t be separated from the discussion of where McCain stands on women and the issues that are especially important to us.

But Witter, too, comes back to this point: it's the issues that women vote for, and McCain and Obama are starkly different. Any woman who'd vote for Hillary would have to do a major policy shift to vote yes for McCain, no matter what some polls say. But in her reasons why Democratic women won't vote for McCain, Witter puts typical women's issues, like abortion rights and family planning above issues about our economic future. I think that's a mistake. Race and gender politics, I predict, will fade into the past as we now enter a discussion of two very serious issues: the poor economy (which we're all feeling now) and foreign (unfortunately, race politics will be back in a big, nasty way as we enter the fall). I've shared my views on foreign policy before, and I think Obama has a real problem there. But...

Today, the national average price for gas hit $4 a gallon. And Obama is pushing hard to frame his platform around the economy: Today he gives a speech outlining “the first part his economic vision for America -- his plan to provide opportunity to working families who are struggling and restore fairness and balance to our economy. He’ll also lay out the very clear choice in this election. It’s a choice between John McCain’s plan to continue four more years of costly Bush economic policies that have widened inequality and left our children with a mountain of debt and … Obama’s plan to provide relief to struggling homeowners, affordable health care and college for all, and a tax code that rewards work instead of wealth.”

High gas prices (environmentally appropriate as they may be) will be a powerful lever that drives this election for American women. Our mourning Clinton will be short-lived indeed if Obama presents a compelling economic vision. If Obama tells voters that getting out of Iraq will help lower gas prices, more will vote anti-war. If he tells voters his diplomatic brand of foreign policy will help lower gas prices, bingo.

The grieving for Hillary is real and the anger is raw (watch this moving video). But whether or not you believe she lost because of sexism (I do not), we need to get busy here and promote the Democratic ticket. Because five more years of Iraq, and we'll be worried about a lot more than gas prices.