Scripting history, the 68-year-old former secretary of state today became the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major USA party as she secured the backing of the Democrats to set up an epic clash with Republican rival Donald Trump in the November polls.
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“I move that Hillary Clinton be selected as the Democratic nominee for president”, said Vermont Senator Sanders, suggesting to give Clinton the nomination by acclamation in a bid to bridge the divide between his backers and Clinton supporters.
But it was not until absolutely all the states had voted that Vermont was recognized to cast its fond vote for its favorite son and allow him to make a special motion.
On Wednesday night he’ll set the stakes for this election to make the case for another history-making nominee – Hillary Clinton.
March participant Tiara Willis, of Philadelphia, said she subscribes to the slogan “I’m with her”.
Monday saw disruptive protests and a rancorous fight over leaked emails that showed party bias against Sanders. Civil rights icon John Lewis, a congressman from Georgia, seconded the nomination.
Lewis said the Democrats broke barriers by selecting the first black man, President Barack Obama, to be commander-in-chief in 2008.
“No matter what Bill Clinton says and no matter how well he says it, the phony media will exclaim it to be incredible”.
The confirmation was greeted with cheers from ecstatic Clinton supporters, who drowned out jeers from Sanders’ supporters.
The former president’s tenth address to a Democratic convention was by far his most personal, a 42-minute tour through wedding proposals and Halloween parties, the deaths of parents and movie marathons.
Sanders meanwhile called on his supporters to get behind Clinton.
“In my view, it’s easy, it’s easy to boo, but it is harder to look your kids in the face who would be living under a Donald Trump presidency”, he said. They said they were holding a peaceful protest to complain about being shut out by the Democratic Party.
“She is still the best darn change-maker I have ever known”, the 69-year-old former president said in a mesmerising speech, asking his countrymen to vote and elect Hillary as the next U.S. president.
She reached the milestone in a roll call vote from all 50 states at the Democratic National Convention (DNC).
“I may become the first woman president, but one of you is next”. She’s been around a long time.’ She sure has and she’s sure been worth every single year she’s put into making people’s lives better.
But Clinton and the others, including mothers who have lost children to gun violence or in clashes with police, will also have the unstated mission of mending fences with Sanders’ army of vocal young activists.
“I married my best friend”, he said.
“She didn’t get angry or disillusioned. Hillary did not pack up and go home”, she said. “She will never quit on you”. The crowd consisted of an assortment of protesters espousing a variety of causes, but mostly Sanders supporters and other Clinton foes on the left.
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The 69-year-old Democratic icon and two-term president remains a powerful force on the national stage, although he is more gaunt and his energy is no longer boundless as it appeared four years ago. He describes the speech as a “quiet, rambling, at times touching, at times prosaic love letter, the likes of which no modern convention has ever quite seen or heard”.
