At the confluence of Cherry Creek and the Platte River, the place called, appropriately enough, Confluence Park, a stubborn booth sits in sad insignificance, removed from the jangle of the Pepsi Center and the important business being done there.

On the banks of the creek, blue yard signs are stuck almost as afterthoughts, urging anyone passing by to vote for Hillary Clinton for President.

These were bicyclers and joggers mostly, along with one lone fellow carrying a sandwich sign saying in perfect Shanahanese that he was a protester protesting protest bans.

Hillary for President is not an option, not any more, but the sentiment clings. We shall not know what kind of president Clinton would be and thus it can always be imagined that she would have been great.

Barak Obama, or John McCain, will have to live with what they actually do, just as George W. Bush must, an unerasable record at the mercy of history. Clinton has the best of it, really. She gets to be the greatest leader never allowed to lead.

There are millions who believe that and will always be able to believe it since Clinton can do nothing from here to change it. She has become Hillary of Arc, a martyr to the cause, mistreated by a jealous inquisition, namely the press. Some of this is true, some of it is an honest ache no male can understand.

My one experience that reinforces the rage came at a Colorado caucus I witnessed, an affair so loosely managed it might have been an unsupervised elementary classroom, which is where it was held.

Votes were taken by a show of hands, less certifiable than hanging chads, and the guy doing the counting was wearing an Obama ’08 t-shirt. This is where Clinton lost, of course, in the caucuses, her own fault but lost nonetheless.

I wanted to ask why the booth and the signs were there at Confluence Park, so out of the way. What was the point of it, a stubborn token or a Quixotic gesture? But the booth was unmanned (unwomanned?) Like the candidate herself, irrelevant.

This seemed a more appropriate scene than others around town, assorted lunches and meetings, the public defiance of the public fact, women angrily interviewed. I could not miss the symbolism of the place as well, of two separate streams joining to make a stronger one.

If the media has egged on the Clinton-Obama clash, carrying it into the convention, it is because conflict is more interesting than harmony, a thistle demanding more concern than a daisy. The wedge being driven by the McClain campaign is self-fertilizing.

It is easy to find the disenchanted Hillary backer. I live with one, in fact. But the truth is, the outlook is empty, like the booth.

I picked up a loose Hillary for President badge as a souvenir, to be added to a collection of Muskie, Bradley, Giuliani badges, if I actually had such a collection.

Ah, yes. Clinton v. Giuliani, that’s how it was supposed to be when this all started.

And if I had such a collection it would have to include Huckabee and Nader and Kucinich, all of those who never got as close as did Hillary, nor got their chance to properly step away.

Breaths were held Tuesday night for Clinton’s address to the delegations. If only armpits had been squeezed to sides as well, the aroma of the room would have improved greatly, but they were continually raised in applause.

The moment was hers and she did not abuse it. It was more than just another losing candidate being kissed off with a final few moments in the spotlight.

Clinton urged her supporters to do the right thing, wistfully recounting memories of the campaign, she and the sisterhood of the traveling pants suit, urging all to get on with the only job that matters, electing a Democratic president and Congress. It was not like McArthur’s farewell at West Point, but it had that feel.

What could not be missed was the contrast with Michelle Obama of the night before, she eloquent and supportive, confident of the future.

So, it came down to this. The woman who would be president was at the end compared not to the man she battled so fiercely and narrowly for the job, but to his wife.

Maybe the Democrats got it wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.