In the latest sign of disunity, the party confab was formally opened Monday by Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake – not by Democratic National Committee boss Debbie Wasserman Schultz as expected. “These comments do not reflect the values of the DNC or our steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process”.
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For his own part, Mr Sanders has urged his supporters to vote for Clinton, but was booed for saying so during the first day of the convention.
Haffner and other Sanders delegates said the Clinton campaign has not made it easy to heal the divisions.
First lady Michelle Obama stepped into the presidential election Monday with a forceful, impassioned defense of Hillary Clinton, casting her as the only candidate who can be trusted as a role model for the nation’s children. At the end of last week, WikiLeaks published emails between staffers at the Democratic National Committee, which made vivid and explicit what had previously been opaque but assumed – the DNC did not want Bernie Sanders to win the Democratic primary, and put its thumb gently on the scales (to a degree that had no significant influence on the primary’s ultimate result).
The frantic attempts to cool tempers came as DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz was forced to resign on the eve of the convention.
Anything less risks having Sanders being blamed for any signs of disunity that emerge from this convention.
Then, in the opening moments of the proceedings, loud cheers for Clinton were mixed with a smattering of boos from party delegates and chants of “Bernie!”
Lujan added that the emails in question ― the final straw for party officials who’d been calling for Wasserman Schultz’s resignation for months ― should never have been written. The text message follows several instances inside and outside the Wells Fargo Center of Sanders supporters staging protests and making known their discontent with Hillary Clinton.
It will be seen as an important effort to try unify the party behind Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump.
After the panels, delegates headed to the convention to hear Sanders speak.
Sanders was the closing speaker on a night also featuring Mrs. Obama, who remains a wildly popular figure; New Jersey Sen.
“I will”, an angry Humphrey said after a Hillary for America staffer declined to answer his questions in front of reporters. The program was also chockfull of up-and-coming Democratic lawmakers.
New polls showed Trump surging since his confirmation last week as the Republican presidential nominee, with a CNN poll putting him three points ahead of Clinton – a six-point post-convention bump.
“Somebody had to fall on the sword, and I’ll just leave it at that”, said Keelan Sanders, a superdelegate for Sanders. “There is only one person I trust with that responsibility, only one person I believe is truly qualified to be president of the United States, and that is Hillary Clinton”.
Clinton campaign officials blamed the hack, which is now being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on Russian military intelligence agencies.
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The most notable imprint of Sanders, the senator of Vermont, on the platform is the inclusion of his signature call for raising the minimum federal wage to 15 US dollars an hour from the current 7.25 dollars per hour.
