On Sunday, July 24, 2016, Wasserman Schultz announced she would step…
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The scandal led to the ouster of party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and an apology from party leaders.
From the podium, however, some of Sanders’ allies noted their progress in influencing the party’s platform and moving to reduce the influence of superdelegates, party leaders and elected officials who help decide the nomination.
The star of the night was Obama, who delivered an unequivocal endorsement of Clinton and took a sharp swipe at Republican nominee Trump, sparking a euphoric reception.
Sanders spoke about the economy and ensuring that the country’s future economic system worked for more than the top “one percent”.
Hillary Clinton announced last Friday that she has chosen Tim Kaine, a Catholic senator from the battleground state of Virginia, to be her White House running mate. It came at a crucial moment for Clinton’s campaign, on the heels of leaked emails suggesting the party had favored the former secretary of state through the primaries despite a vow of neutrality.
But Sanders’s message is ultimately a calming one.
She says if promises are not kept by Clinton in the first 100 days “then civil disobedience will follow”.
Behind the scenes, Sanders and Clinton aides joined forces to try to ease tensions.
Diehard supporters of Sanders booed when a pastor leading the invocation prayer mentioned Clinton’s name, setting the stage for each successive mention to spark a raucous chorus of outbursts.
He later sent a text message to supporters asking them not to protest on the floor of the convention as a “personal courtesy” to him.
Later in the evening, President Bill Clinton, the first of two former presidents to address the convention, will make the case for his wife’s election.
As one speaker was imploring party unity from the dais, Kim Netherton, 31, a Sanders delegate from Colorado yelled out “Bulls-t!” “Donald Trump doesn’t see me, he doesn’t hear me, and he definitely doesn’t speak for me”, said Somoza, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and spastic quadriplegia when she was born.
Mrs. Obama was one of the night’s standouts. She has defended these policies in primary debates but so far has not wanted to spend time on them, despite Trump’s badgering.
“Don’t let anyone tell you that America isn’t great”.
“Instead of higher wages for workers, Dr. King described how poor whites in the South were fed Jim Crow, which told a poor white worker that, quote, ‘no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man, ‘” she said.
Clinton’s campaign hoped the nighttime line-up would overshadow a tumultuous start to the four-day convention.
“He’s just sort of given up”, Trump stated about Sanders, adding that the Democratic-Socialist is losing his legacy during a campaign rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on Monday night.
But in Philadelphia, Delegates waved “Love Trumps Hate” signs and cheered as immigration supporters, gay rights advocates, and labor leaders took the stage.
Comedian-turned-Sen. Al Franken, a Clinton supporter, and actress Sarah Silverman, a Sanders supporter, made a joint appearance to promote party unity. “To the Bernie or Bust people, you’re being ridiculous”, Silverman said.
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“Any objective observer will conclude that – based on her ideas and her leadership – Hillary Clinton must become the next president of the United States”.
