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Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned from her position on Sunday after calls from across her party. The ensuing uproar forced Wasserman Schultz, a congresswoman from Florida, to announce that she would step down at the end of the convention. In roasting heat, spirited protests unfolded outside, another echo of the Republican convention in Cleveland. Convention officials said the night’s “United Together” theme will focus on building an economy that works for everyone, “not just those at the top” – one of the mantras of Sanders’ campaign.
According to CNN, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s leadership of the party became untenable after Wikileaks released almost 20,000 DNC emails that proved Bernie Sanders’ claims that elements of the party were against his candidacy and favored Hillary Clinton to take the nomination.
The White House is pitching first lady Michelle Obama’s speech Monday night as a barometer of party unity.
During the opening invocation, Rev. Cynthia Hale was drowned out by chants of “Bernie!” when she mentioned nominating Clinton. Yet it still gave Trump the bounce he was looking for, lifting him into the lead across a string of recent polls.
“I’m Bernie or bust, ” she said.
“It kind of all reaffirms in the minds of Bernie delegates that we were given a raw deal, that we are dealing with a rigged system, that the primary was very much rigged from the very beginning in favor of Mrs. Clinton”, said Karen Bernal, one of the leaders of the California Sanders delegation, during a morning news conference. But she could not yet bring herself to say she’ll vote for Clinton.
The party is reeling from leaked Democratic National Committee emails that show nominally neutral party staff trying to undermine Sanders’ campaign and questioning his Jewish faith.
Many of Sanders’ delegates, frustrated with the primary process and furious with outgoing party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were still weighing ways to disrupt the four-day event. “Period”, said MI delegate Melissa Arab, a Sanders supporter. Famously, as mayor of Burlington in the 1980s, the nation’s best-known socialist ordered some of his old friends from “The Movement” arrested when they tried to block a General Electric weapons plant – because the workers inside had good union jobs and had supported Sanders.
There was no Ted Cruz moment in Bernie Sanders speech.
Later, a man walked through the halls of the convention center bellowing to anyone who would listen that “You’re making a mistake if you vote for Hillary Clinton”.
Warren first emerged as a progressive hero leading the banking and financing reforms that President Barack Obama sought in the wake of the Great Recession. Liberal favorite Elizabeth Warren, senator from MA, and Sanders himself also gave the party something to cheer about Monday night. She’s not sure she plans to stay with the party. To defeat Donald Trump this fall is my number one goal. She warned that the White House couldn’t be in the hands of someone with “a thin skin or a tendency to lash out” or someone who tells voters the country can be great again.
But the jeers continued, with delegates drowning out early speakers and occasionally even echoing the Republican chant of “lock her up” in order to express their frustration with Hillary Clinton. The hacked DNC emails fed the suspicion of Sanders’ supporters and sapped Clinton’s campaign of some of its energy following a well-received rollout Saturday of her running mate, Virginia Sen.
“It certainly appears Bernie has not filtered down his message of unity to all his folks”, said Sen. But he stopped mid-sentence when he addressed the convention, as his supporters cheered.
But more important was what they said and how it could start to wipe away the hard feelings of a year of conflict and competition with Sanders and a weekend of embarrassment over the contents of the leaked emails.
I’ve been fascinated by Bernie’s revolution for the past year, even writing an e-book about it.
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Sanders was taking the stage later in the night.
