Whether it’s an attempt to scoop up some of the party malcontents or a fundamental failure to understand that it’s not facing a typical Republican candidate in Trump, the Democratic Party’s decision to run to its left flank is a confirmation that its “tent” is shrinking.
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Hillary Clinton made her first full response Sunday to Donald Trump’s criticism of the Muslim parents of a dead American soldier whose story moved viewers of last week’s Democratic National Convention. “And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump”.
“I’m so excited to say my first vote for president will be for Hillary Clinton”. The other was a fleeting reference to his past presidency: “We heard the man from Hope, Bill Clinton, and the man of hope, Barack Obama”.
Her warning that Trump could prove perilous for American democracy couldn’t be missed.
Ms. Clinton has ardent supporters, but she is viewed unfavorably by a majority of voters. She is an unpaid adviser to Donald Trump.
But there was also much time spent on informing the public about Hillary Clinton the woman, the wife, the mother and – before politics – the fierce social activist. She could not have been more informal or charming.
Neilson ratings data obtained by the Los Angeles Times found that Democrats edged out Republicans during each of the first three nights of the convention.
“At the end of the day, (Sanders’) coalition looked too much like a modern day Woodstock, and not enough like the Obama coalition it takes to win the primaries and the general”, said Boyd Brown, a Democratic National Committeeman from SC who supported former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.
Clinton is likely to face a tough challenge in such states from Republican nominee Donald Trump, a NY businessman who is trying to win white working-class voters with rhetoric against free trade and illegal immigration. But there is an ad hominem quality to this attack that frees Trump to play tribune to the poor, and, more importantly, absolves the broader GOP for nominating and endorsing Trump’s racist candidacy. But if there is to be a future president Clinton, she will come into office on a platform pledged to undoing at least some of what her husband did.
There’s a heck of a lot of pressure on Hillary Clinton today. “She left notes for me to open every day she was gone”.
“I didn’t produce the show – I just showed up for the final speech on Thursday”, the Republican presidential nominee told The New York Times when asked about the differences between the two parties’ conventions. How do you square it? “You have sacrificed nothing and no one”. The appearance of him encouraging Russian Federation to meddle in the presidential campaign enraged Democrats and Republicans, even as he dismissed suggestions from Obama and other Democrats that Moscow already was intervening on his behalf.
Clinton’s own remarks at the conclusion will not enter the pantheon of great American prose or political rhetoric.
The speech appealed to the best in all of us.
Obama as well sought to take down Trump, whom he referred to as a “homegrown demagogue” who, he suggested, is not fit to be commander-in-chief.
Rick Neuhoff, also from Florida, said his favorite was President Obama’s. Much, though, was devoted to her policy platform and what she intends to do in her first 100 days in office if she becomes president.
But her real audience was the millions of voters watching at home, many of whom may welcome her experience but question her character. “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapon”.
Referencing the courage of the Founding Fathers in standing up to a king, she said, “America is once again at a moment of reckoning”.
The second-most tweeted moment of the national convention was also a slap at Trump: “Here’s the sad truth: There is no other Donald Trump”. Following reports Russian Federation hacked Democratic Party emails, Trump said he’d like to see Moscow find the thousands of emails Clinton deleted from the account she used as secretary of state.
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But as the crowd chanted the slogan in Colorado Springs, Trump finally relented.
