On Thursday, she accepted her party’s formal nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, making history as the first woman to carry the colors of a major U.S. political party in the presidential race.
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Hillary Clinton has cast herself as a unifier for divided times, an experienced leader steeled for a volatile world – and aggressively challenged Donald Trump’s ability to do the same.
“I am so exhausted by it”, said Danielle Adams, a black Clinton delegate from North Carolina. I will be a President for Democrats, Republicans, and independents. “I’m voting for the progressive who will protect our planet from climate change and our communities from gun violence; who will reform our criminal justice system and who knows that women’s rights are human rights and who knows that LGBT rights are human rights here at home and around the world”.
Obama, whose wife, Michelle, gave Clinton a rousing tribute at the convention on Monday, is scheduled to deliver his 30-minute speech at 10:30 p.m. EDT (0230 GMT on Thursday). The family I’m from … well, no one had their name on big buildings.
She struck populist themes that should resonate with Sanders’s backers. “Your cause is our cause”.
Speaking at the Democratic Party convention on Wednesday night to endorse Hillary Clinton as the party’s presidential nominee, Biden took aim at Trump’s trademark reality TV slogan, “You’re fired”, saying the billionaire businessman’s “cynicism” was unbounded. She had been thinking about the speech for weeks, and worked on it with her staff and her husband Bill.
Mrs Clinton’s top advisers told the New York Times she would highlight the moment of reckoning that they said the country faces – the path of division laid out by Republicans or a way forward, “stronger together”.
Each of the other pieces of the coalition Clinton hopes to build got a voice at the convention.
A parade of speakers at the Philadelphia convention vigorously tried to do just that on Clinton’s behalf. Throughout her speech, she also attacked Donald Trump for sowing the seeds of divisiveness and hate in America. “Trump picture frames in India, not Wisconsin”, she said. “I haven’t had that happen with any of the African-American Bernie supporters”.
Kaine was interviewed on ABC News’ “Good Morning America”. “I was going to do it as a duty”, he said.
Her speech capped a star-studded, thematically coherent and methodically organized convention that contrasted sharply with a shambolic Trump gathering in Cleveland that most leading Republicans shunned. How her message translates to the rest of America is yet to be seen.
“Leaving the party doesn’t solve the problem”, she said. That’s the Hillary I’ve come to admire.
It is the center-stage opportunity she came so close to seizing eight years ago during her first White House campaign, only to be defeated in her party’s primary race by Barack Obama. All three will join an army of surrogates sent out to battleground states to target different niches of the electorate.
Mr Trump, a 70-year-old NY businessman who has never held political office, is running just ahead of Mrs Clinton in a RealClearPolitics average of recent national opinion polls. More than half the public has an unfavorable view of her. They both garner high “unpopularity” ratings.
John Stubbs and Ricardo Reyes, two former officials in President George W. Bush’s administration, attended the convention to generate interest in their pro-Clinton grassroots organization called R4C16.org.
She acknowledged her shortcomings as a candidate on Thursday. “Regardless of what has happened in my life, my mother was always, always there for me”, she said.
“I certainly know that with her as our commander-in-chief, our foreign relations will not be reduced to a business transaction, I also know that our armed forces will not become an instrument of torture”, said Allen.
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Clinton is “a woman who’s my role model as a mother and as an advocate”, Chelsea said. Many of those backing the Donald are the legions of Americans who have found themselves sidelined and silenced by a country which just isn’t working for them. We persevere. We stay focused.
