As Mr Obama had, she portrayed Mr Trump’s egotism as fundamentally un-American. She’d seek to smooth relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia, whose leaders clashed with Obama over Jewish settlements and the Iran deal. She played within herself, solid, but showing flashes of her wicked humor at times. An estimated 9.4 million people watched Trump on Fox, the most popular network for Republicans, and Fox took out newspaper ads touting its first-place finish among those covering the convention.
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After eight years and two terms of United States presidentship, Barack Obama had to finally pass on the baton to his potential successor – Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, also his one-time rival in the 2008 presidential elections. She offers two things: an agenda-as opposed to a message-and a demeanor.
He doesn’t touch on minorities’ rights, women’s rights (last heard saying he thinks women should be punished for having abortions, an opinion he seemed to rescind after even pro-life Republicans weren’t very on board with it), LGBT rights, or any tangible strategy to tackle Islamist extremism apart from closing the borders, which will stoke further racial tension within the United States and could lead to more attacks. She gave as instances some of Trump’s most egregious remarks – calling women “pigs”, decrying a judge as unfair because of his Mexican ancestry and so on. The examples were non-stop admirable-to a point. It had been a slow reveal: absent on the first day, on the second Mrs Clinton spoke briefly by videolink after her formal nomination, which, in the end, her cantankerous rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, helped to orchestrate. “‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself'”. But somehow Head Start-the official government program-doesn’t work at all, according to the government’s own comprehensive study. He says he knows more about ISIS “than the generals”, and he’s “speaking with myself” on foreign policy, because he has “a very good brain”. It’s much worse at the local level: Government is, too often, run for the benefit of its employees rather than for its citizens. But she did respond directly to her opponent’s long and angry speech. “It became clear to me that simply caring is not enough”.
Democrats have acknowledged the political challenge of running in this environment, and that the party in power rarely wins a third term.
By most accounts, the former USA secretary of state and current Democratic Party presidential nominee is, in person, an extraordinarily impressive presence. I have no doubt that she will face every new crisis with calm, consistency and intelligence. That doesn’t mean she won’t sometimes be wrong.
With just over 100 days until the November election, Clinton will hold a rally Friday in Philadelphia to officially begin the complicated task of wooing aggrieved Bernie Sanders supporters on her left and Republicans who can’t support Trump on her right.
Pledging to be a president for “all Americans”, the former secretary of state received thunderous cheers from thousands of delegates in the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia where she called for unity in a nation at a “state of reckoning”.
Over the course of the convention, the enthusiasm for Mrs Clinton in the hall had progressed from dutifulness to something more authentic. “I believe American corporations that have gotten so much from our country should be just as patriotic in return”. In a world that has come to be defined and will continued to be defined by random acts of terror and mental illness, a steady hand is a crucial quality. “But how are you going to get it done?”
We’re not going to see a Nixon-with-Checkers attempt at rebranding over the next few months. “This year, I will vote for a Democrat for the first time”. When it comes to emotions, they’re all in on stoking fears and hatred of Donald Trump and don’t have any chips left to bet on anything else.
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After the Iowa caucuses were unexpectedly close, the head of the Iowa Democratic Party declared there would be no review of results – until the Des Moines Register editorialized that, “Something smells in the Democratic Party”.
