What will Sanders voters do?
Advertisement
Her triumph came after former rival Bernie Sanders asked delegates at the party’s national convention in Philadelphia to nominate her by acclamation, in a dramatic end to the roll call of states.
Other former presidents haven’t been almost as welcome at post-party conventions as Clinton has been. Holding a sign saying “Centenarian for Hillary”, 102-year-old Jerry Emmett of Prescott, Arizona, cast her state delegation’s vote.
“We’ve been walking and talking and laughing together ever since”, he said.
Sinunu-Towery remembers as a child playing with a toy White House, filled with “little white presidents – all male” she would line up in a row. The former president recalled that as a law student at Yale University in 1971, “I met a girl” named Hillary Rodham. “That’s what she does”. He spoke of her political conversion from the party of her youth: “Her support for civil rights and her opposition to the Vietnam War compelled her to change parties and become a Democrat”.
Mr Trump took the usual shots at Clinton during a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, calling her “Crooked Hillary” and charging that her use of a private email account as secretary of state “put America’s entire national security at risk”. “That is just who she is”, Bill Clinton said of his candidate wife, keeping his audience of thousands of delegates rapt throughout his 45-minute speech, which marks the convention’s halfway point. “I was still in awe, after more than four years of being around her, at how smart and strong and loving and caring she was”.
Separating Bill Clinton’s achievements from Hillary Clinton’s record proved hard for her campaign during the primary season, particularly after years of the couple famously marketing themselves as “two for the price of one”. “You just have to decided which is which, my fellow Americans”. Although the roll call outcome was a foregone conclusion, the state-by-state vote saw rowdy displays on the convention floor. Her husband, ex-President Bill Clinton closed the historic night with an expansive and passionate testimonial, offering a deeply personal though sanitized account of their relationship.
“It’s unbelievable”, said Karen Sinunu-Towery, a former Santa Clara County assistant district attorney who had a convention pass for the event. “They can not silence us”. Here’s everything you need to know.
But it wasn’t only Clinton who broke a glass ceiling on Tuesday when she became the first female nominee of a major party.
Pelosi’s speech ended with the Democratic women of the U.S. House of Representatives who joined her onstage also taking time at the mic to support Clinton. “Many of them were supportive of Hillary afterwards”.
“I really wasn’t interested, I just wanted to go home to Arkansas”, he noted.
Although the convention made clear progress in sublimating its divisions, Clinton remains a divisive and largely unpopular figure for the country, as is Trump.
“We’ve done it in good times and bad through joy and heartbreak… we built up a lifetime of memories”, he continued. “And we weren’t welcome”, said Liz Maratea, a New Jersey delegate at the media tent protest.
Betras praised Sanders for “doing a lot to work to bring the party together”.
Advertisement
“They’re running against a cartoon”, Bill Clinton said in his speech. “It takes time. But I’ve spoken to very few people who aren’t united” behind Clinton. When I floated the idea of Donald Trump, both she and her mother responded a flat, “no”.
