Kaine, a US senator from Virginia picked as Clinton’s running mate last week, will also get a chance to present himself to the party and the country.
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This will mark a change of focus from Tuesday’s proceedings which largely highlighted Clinton’s personal warmth and the historic nature of her nomination. But Clinton aides call these heavy hitters “the uber principals”, or “the ubers” for short.
It will be an early bit of drama ahead of a convention lineup that’s packed with star power – with two presidents, a vice president and the first lady serving as warm-up acts for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. This backup squad packs more political celebrity wattage than perhaps any presidential nominee has ever had.
“What an incredible honor you have given me”, Hillary Clinton said.
She talked about her daughters, and of the challenges she and the president- and all other parents- face in providing them with good examples of adults they should aspire to be like. The former president called his wife, who has also been a US senator, a dynamic force for change and sought to paint his wife in a warm personal light. Many of them can especially help attract younger voters, a demographic whose turnout is unreliable.
Monday offered a clear example of the luxury of their problem. Michelle Obama wowed in a patriotic blue dress while giving one of the most inspirational speeches of the night at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Monday, July 25.
It was a nostalgic moment for Mrs. Obama, as she praised the woman whom Democrats hope will succeed her husband and a woman with whom she has shared the title of first lady. It’s that story of America, she said, that brought her to Philadelphia to deliver her speech.
President Obama likes to say he has run his last campaign.
Still, the core of Clinton’s strategy is putting back together Obama’s winning White House coalition.
The president lauded her performance.
“She knows that debt-free college is not a gift, it’s not a charity, it’s an investment”, Booker said.
“It really stood out in the Cabinet meetings”, said Jon Favreau, then Obama’s lead speechwriter. He also argued that it was Clinton who is endangering national security with her policies in the Middle East and North Africa. “It was on budget battles, on healthcare reform”. Some disliked her, but a lot of folks just didn’t know who she was.
She touted Clinton’s experience fighting for children with disabilities as a young lawyer, pushing for health care when she was first lady herself and child care as a NY senator. He says the first lady will give voice to the values and agenda that the Obama administration has pursued over the past seven years.
Clinton is not a carbon copy of Obama, of course.
Podesta’s chief of staff, Sara Latham, who manages not just the ubers but also a longer roster of elected officials, noted another president who has also been active for Clinton: actor Tony Goldwyn, who portrays President Fitzgerald Grant on the hit ABC show “Scandal”. And Podesta announced to the Pennsylvania delegation that Biden will campaign with Clinton in his hometown of Scranton, Pa., in mid-August. He is director of speech and debate at Southern Methodist University, and an adviser to the George W. Bush Institute, an arm of the former president’s presidential center. “It gets our activists more active, more willing to volunteer”.
Instead, she has become, against the odds, a transcendent figure whose gravitas, sincerity and mainstream appeal are not in doubt when it comes to vast majority of American voters.
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An asset or a disruption?
