He went on to explain how it took three marriage proposals for her to finally accept his hand, adding, “the third time was the charm”.
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The crowd consisted of an assortment of protesters espousing a variety of causes, but mostly Sanders supporters and other Clinton foes on the left. Several wept and embraced.
“Imagine yourself being a Bernie-or-Bust person listening to that”, said Representative Keith Ellison, a prominent Bernie Sanders supporter during the primaries.
“I move that Hillary Clinton be selected as the Democratic nominee for president”, said Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s archrival in the primaries. Delegates thrust placards in the air, forming a mosaic of “H’s” that coated the stadium floor.
He did so by spending a lot of time discussing his courtship of Hillary Rodham, even as he skipped over his years in the White House, a decision that showed he did not want the focus to be on his presidential career.
Clinton’s nomination was formally put forward by Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, the longest serving woman in the history of the US Congress. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights icon, seconded it. Na’ilah Amaru, an Iraq war veteran and contest victor from NY, gave the third nominating speech.
‘Show a little class’The Clinton camp is now looking to unite the party’s factions. For him, a recent WikiLeaks dump of around 200,000 Democratic National Committee emails – some showing officials trying to undercut the Sanders campaign – meant Clinton’s win was not fair.
Some skeptical voters in Philadelphia are willing to give Clinton a re-hearing, especially after listening to fellow Democrats vouch for her from the convention stage.
“She sauntered into one of these academies by herself, pretending to be a housewife who had just moved to town and needed to find a school for her son”, her husband said. “There are clear, achievable, affordable responses to our challenges, but we won’t get to them if America makes the wrong choice in this election”.
The protests continued into the night with Sanders supporters and anti-police brutality protesters joining together.
He never once mentioned GOP nominee Donald Trump by name, dismissing Republican attacks on Clinton as “made up” and a “cartoon alternative”. This year, he – and she – were criticized after he met privately with Attorney General Loretta Lynch in the middle of the FBI’s investigation into her email use at the State Department.
Clinton has one big advantage over Trump heading into November: hindsight.
“I was so impressed and surprised that, whether you believe it or not, momentarily, I was speechless”, he continued.
Minutes earlier, former President Bill Clinton took on the role of devoted political spouse, declaring his wife an impassioned “change-maker” as he served as character witness.
He’d been talking all day, and yelling all night, and at the Democratic National Convention, the days and the nights are very long.
Bill Clinton traced the couple’s love story chapter and verse, starting from their meeting in a library and proceeding through his head-strong courtship and on through the years.
Earlier in the day, participants at the rally charged that Sanders was cheated out of the nomination, and they said they weren’t swayed by his Monday plea to his supporters to fall in line behind Clinton for the good of the country.
For a man more accustomed to delivering policy-packed stem-winders, Mr Clinton’s deeply personal address to the Democratic Party Convention in Philadelphia underscored the historic night for Democrats, and the nation.
But despite Sanders calling on his flock to get behind Clinton, his self-styled “political revolution” appears to have transformed into a revolt.
Elsewhere in the hall, a Sanders delegate from Nevada was escorted out of the hall, yelling “Nevada was rigged”.
“There’s no unity in the party”, she said of the Clinton camp.
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“Why can’t we have somebody in the White House that doesn’t need to be shined up?” asked 31-year-old Liz Maratea of New Jersey, standing Tuesday outside the Wells Fargo Center, where she’d come to support Bernie Sanders.
