Obama himself summed up the challenge as he hammered Trump in his speech amid boos from the audience.
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More than anything, analysts say Clinton and her campaign must get out the vote in order to win the presidency.
Many anticipated that Clinton’s acceptance speech would garner more viewers than Trump because every other night of the Democratic National Convention had higher ratings than the associated night of the Republican National Convention.
At a rally in Pittsburgh, she was introduced by Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner, technology investor and television personality who recently endorsed her. “Leadership is not yelling and screaming and intimidating”, he said. “Just watch me”, he says. The shoot-from-the-hip billionaire believes he can make headway in those states with blue-collar white men, a demographic that has eluded Clinton and was unlikely to be swayed by a convention that heavily celebrated racial and gender diversity.
While Clinton must play to the party’s base – and seek to soothe bruised Sanders supporters – a key mission was to appeal to crossover voters and independents wary of Trump.
In Ohio, the RealClearPolitics polling average shows Clinton and Trump virtually tied, with the former secretary of state edging him by less than a percentage point.
“This is the moment, this is the opportunity for our future”, said retired Marine Gen. John R. Allen, a former commander in Afghanistan.
American flags waved in the stands of the packed convention hall. “We’ve seen changes over the years, but we’ve always known that there’s still the hardest glass ceiling of them all”.
“I’ve had a lovely, I’ve had a flawless campaign”, he said. But there’s another invisible barrier for her campaign: reluctance in many electors to give her trust.
“But I realize it’s a very different thing for my mom’s generation”, she continued, “and I celebrate the accomplishment and their fight that they’ve done for me and my daughters”.
In a moment created to appeal to more conservative Americans, Clinton forcefully said: “I’m not here to take away your guns”.
“I do tremble before those who would scapegoat other Americans”, she told parishioners in a Cleveland church on Sunday morning.
Along the way, the Clinton campaign is loudly accusing Trump and running mate Mike Pence of offering a gloom-and-doom vision, what Clinton on Thursday dubbed “midnight in America”. In an earlier statement, he accused Democrats of living in a “fantasy world”, ignoring economic and security troubles as well as Clinton’s controversial email use at the State Department.
Polls find that most Americans question Clinton’s honesty.
Aided by the fear and loathing at the Republican National Convention, and Donald Trump’s relentless work to build a cult of personality, the Democrats have suddenly become the party of flag-waving and “USA!” Her opponent is a madman.
Throughout Clinton’s speech, pockets of revolt emerged, mainly Sanders supporters who shouted out in protest but were quickly drowned out by Clinton supporters chanting “Hillary!” So far, she and her super PAC have had the airwaves in the battleground states virtually to themselves as they’ve run in heavy rotation ads featuring Trump mocking a disabled reporter that strategists said has tested off the charts with voters. Tim Kaine, who addressed the convention Wednesday. For many of her supporters, it was an emotional night. The diverse parade of speakers who took the stage in Philadelphia this week underscored that goal.
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“We’re still facing deep-seated problems that developed long before the recession and have stayed with us through the recovery”, Clinton said, adding that “an very bad lot of people feel there is less and less respect for the work they do”. Regardless of how you try to redefine socialism, as Sanders has, by putting the word “democratic” in front of it, the meaning remains the same: a system of government where production of goods is owned collectively through distribution of wealth, workers are compensated for their time instead of the value of work they produce, and people are dependent upon government services for everything from food to health care.
