The DNC interspersed its program with brief, whimsical videos highlighting some of GOP nominee Donald Trump’s most controversial comments on women. He was given the headlining spot on the third night of the 2012 convention – one typically reserved for vice presidents.
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The themes of women and history were woven into nearly every speech, performance, and even in the signs reading “history” passed out to delegates.
On Tuesday evening, all 50 states put in roll call votes for the Democratic nomination, and primary rival Bernie Sanders moved for the nomination to go by acclimation. But another woman, the one in the Princess Leia outfit and the honey-bun hairdo, had turned around the Clinton campaign sign she had defaced to read “Hillary for Prison” so it was no longer visible. But the gesture nonetheless filled many Democrats with hope and optimism, evident by tissues being passed around in the stands between young women. His job was to “humanise” her. “It takes grit and grace”, said actress Meryl Streep, wearing an American flag dress.
Clinton told how it took three marriage proposals before Hillary agreed to marry him. Former president Bill Clinton was the main attraction of Tuesday night’s speaking lineup, but I managed to pick some other winners and losers too. He recalled a piece of legislation Hillary spearheaded with former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay – a bitter enemy of the Clinton White House in the 1990s – to increase adoptions for children in foster care. Summoning his charm and nostalgia-factor, Bill said that the Hillary that people don’t trust or don’t like is not real. It’s a “cartoon”, created by Republicans, he said.
“It’s easy to boo”, he told them in exasperation. Michelson said even though she knew Clinton would become the Democratic nominee, and even though Sanders has supported her, she wanted to use the opportunity to “get the message out that we still have a lot of work to do in this country”. “I guess.” She said she would not back Trump and called Clinton, “the lesser of two evils”. That was when Clinton, in NY, appeared to a roar from the crowd.
That aspect of the enterprise got off to a shaky start on Tuesday, when her ally and Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe portrayed her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement as campaign window-dressing that she would abandon in office.
We must elect Hillary Clinton as our next president.
It was, to be sure, a very long speech. Of course, Schultz was then immediately named “honorary chair” of the Clinton own campaign. That’s why you should elect her. “Women are the answer”. He said that Americans deserved relief from “uncontrolled immigration, which is what we have now”, although illegal immigration numbers have been declining. Then the legendary actress Meryl Streep presented an emotional video of heroic women, which was followed by a rapid-fire catalog of pictures of all 44 presidents – including President Obama, who will address the convention on Wednesday night.
Bernie fever breaks as Clinton makes history as the first female nominee of a major party.
Story night was capped, naturally, by a typically freewheeling and lengthy address by her raconteur husband, the former USA president, who contrasted Republicans’ “made-up”, “cartoon” portrayal of his wife with the one he sees – the one who “calls you when you’re sick”, who founded a legal-aid clinic in impoverished Arkansas, who didn’t want to leave after dropping their daughter off at college. Clinton is scheduled to speak Thursday.
The symbolic roll call was packed with extra emotion over Clinton’s historic achievement. “She has the courage to lead the fight for commonsense gun legislation”.
The inclusion of the mothers, as well as the entertainers, softened the pure politics that can dominate political conventions, much as First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech did the night before. Amy Klobuchar were happy to put the matter in starkly political terms. Moments after Clinton claimed the nomination, a group of Sanders supporters left the convention and headed to a media tent to protest what they said was their being shut out of the party.
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“I mean, I hope people, the next morning, walked outside, and birds were chirping and the sun was out, and this afternoon people will be watching their kids play in sports teams and go to the swimming pool, and folks are going to work and getting ready for the weekend”.
