OH and to a lesser extent Pennsylvania are among a handful of competitive states traditionally viewed as decisive in presidential elections, because they do not lean heavily Democratic or Republican. The times they weren’t attacking Donald Trump, Democrats spent building up a damaged candidate and attempting to unify a splintered party that began its convention with a mini-revolt by Bernie Sanders’ stalwart supporters.
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Chelsea recalled those fights: “She’s worked to make it easier for foster kids to be adopted, for our 9/11 first responders to get the health care they deserve, for women around the world to be safe, to be treated with dignity and to have more opportunities”. “Now Hillary hires her DNC chair and wants you to just roll over”. “He had never focused on ensuring that we had the functions that not only enabled [other] doers to focus on doing, but also to help us keep systematic track of all the work that was being done”, she told Fast Company. “I’ve been very nice to her”. Even so, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday showed Clinton leading Republican rival Donald Trump by 6 percentage points.
Eight years after losing her Democratic nomination race to Barack Obama, the former first lady, USA senator from NY and secretary of State also sought to reintroduce herself to the American people, with the help of testimonials from other speakers and a biographical film. The Democratic president tried to thread the needle between understanding Americans are still hurting and touting his record as a two-term. The Clinton campaign said outside experts had found no evidence that its internal systems had been compromised.
But Clinton’s challenge has never been her command of policy. Vice President Joe Biden is a lifelong Democrat and Michael Bloomberg is a Republican turned independent.
Oh, for some substance.
“By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was when we started”, Obama said. Mission accomplished, for the second week in a row.
“Hillary Clinton is that woman in the arena”, Obama said. She hit on Democratic themes that appealed to the partisan crowd: immigration reform, job creation through infrastrucutre projects, and Bernie Sanders’ free college tuition idea. The returns also would detail for the first time how much he pays in income tax and how much he gives to charity.
“No wonder people are anxious and looking for reassurance – looking for steady leadership”, she will say.
“No matter what”, she said, “she was always always there for me”. “Trust me, I know”, Obama told an adoring audience as he extolled Hillary Clinton for president.
The start of the Democratic convention was overshadowed by the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who quit over leaked emails showing party officials favored Clinton over her primary rival Bernie Sanders, a US senator of Vermont.
The most uplifting aspect of the Democratic Convention was buried among the convention’s lack of substance.
Trump, of course, has not congratulated Clinton on her historic nomination.
Eight years ago, this nation elected its first African-American president. “He is temperamentally unfit and unqualified to be president of the United States”. Whatever your view of Clinton’s politics or personality, the nomination is momentous. Opinion polls show a potentially tight race in OH and Pennsylvania, both of which President Barack Obama won in the 2012 election. The tones set by the conventions suggest those days will be filled with attacks and counterattacks. How will Clinton move this nation forward?
Trump had said he sacrificed while creating tens of thousands of jobs and while he “built great structures”.
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We can hold out hope that some of this will be addressed in the debates, but if past performance is any indicator of future prospects, that’s unlikely.
