Obama didn’t address the controversy at last week’s Republican National Convention, when Melania Trump was accused of plagiarizing the first lady’s speech from the 2008 Democratic convention.
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(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite). Sen. And the speech worked because it effectively told a story of a mother and her two children and how she would entrust their world to only one candidate, their friend – as Obama called her – Hillary Clinton. There was one in an early June commencement speech and now on Monday night at the Democratic National Convention. He recalled how relentlessly he had pursued her, proposing to her three times before she accepted.
Clinton can however draw on political lessons learned after her long career in the glare of the public spotlight. A CNN/ORC poll conducted over the weekend found that when Hillary Clinton’s choice for vice president was announced, 27 percent of Americans said they had a favorable opinion of the Virginia senator and 19 percent an unfavorable one. “This is a really important point”, Clinton said of his wife. And she can do Clinton good even in non-political settings. It was a striking parallel to the role Clinton played eight years ago when she stepped to the microphone on the convention floor in Denver in support of her former rival, Barack Obama.
She leads a party still grappling with divisions.
“Imagine yourself being a Bernie-or-Bust person listening to that”, said Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a prominent Bernie Sanders supporter during the primaries. At the same time, protesters who had spent the day marching in the hot sun began facing off with police. Elizabeth Warren ranted that Donald Trump was campaigning to divide America based on race, religion and gender. In North Carolina, he told a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that, “our politicians have totally failed you”. Many voters have questions about her character and trustworthiness, suggesting she’s used her access to power to her personal advantage. They wanted Debbie Wasserman Schultz out – and they can thank WikiLeaks and a long list of compromising emails for that. Hurwitz, he wrote, went 3-for-3 in writing convention speeches for Michelle Obama, “and saved the best for last”.
A state legislator since 2006, GiaQuinta, assistant minority leader in the House, works as utilities service manager for Fort Wayne City Utilities. 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.
Bill Clinton would still be entering uncharted waters should the White House be helmed by his wife, becoming the first man to fill the role of president’s spouse.
Aside from her convention appearance, Mrs. Obama has barely engaged in the 2016 campaign and has resisted positioning herself as a distinct political figure. Jerry Emmett, a 102-year-old woman born before women had the right to vote, cast the ballots for Arizona.
Martha McKenna, a Clinton delegate from Maryland, said the night felt like a celebration for Sanders’ campaign as well as Clinton’s. For having the nerve to praise America for moving toward electing its first black president, she was accused of hating America and of hating white people and, well, you know the rest.
Indiana Democratic state chairman John Zody of Bloomington, said he was pleased with Monday’s convention session and believes in the end the party will be united in the fall campaign.
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Michelle Obama showed us that Monday night.
