At the first mention of Trump’s name, the delegates booed. “Maybe a little nervous addressing such a big crowd”, Obama said amidst laughter from the audience.
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The references to Sanders came from a president and a Democratic nominee for vice president who devoted substantial portions of their speeches to hailing Hillary Clinton, the party’s nominee for president.
“There has never been a man or a woman – not me, not Bill, nobody – more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States”, he said to a filled Wells Fargo Arena.
He said he hoped the takeaway from his speech on Wednesday night would be that he is profoundly optimistic about America’s future, and is “100 per cent convinced that Hillary Clinton can be a great president”. “This is a more fundamental choice about who we are as a people, and whether we stay true to this great American experiment”. “And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump”, he said.
“I was so young that first time in Boston”.
President Obama delivered a resounding defense of the state of the country at the Democratic Convention Wednesday night and said Hillary Clinton would help defend his legacy in the White House, continuing the work left unfinished during his presidency.
Obama worked with White House speechwriter Cody Keenan on the address for three weeks, going through six drafts.
He praised Clinton’s “unbelievable work ethic” and “tenacity” – something he experienced as her Democratic primary rival in 2008, and ultimately came to admire, he said.
Michelle Obama endorsed her husband’s speech. “But I know what she’s passionate about”.
He then went on to ask her to be his Secretary of State, and Obama relayed how he saw first hand how qualified she was.
Mr Sanders had urged his supporters on Monday to fall in line behind Ms Clinton for the good of the country, but many were not swayed, not least because of the revelation that the party bureaucracy had intervened from the beginning of the process to assist her. But Obama says they’ve done it without leaving a trail of lawsuits, unpaid workers and “people feeling like they got cheated”, AP reported.
“Everybody knows she’s smart. That’s what happens when we try”.
Vice presidential nominee and Virginia Sen.
So if you agree that there’s too much inequality in our economy, and too much money in our politics, we all need to be as vocal and as organized and as persistent as Bernie Sanders’ supporters have been.
As Obama spoke, it seemed hard to remember that there was a time when Clinton’s 2016 strategy, too, involved distancing herself from his accomplishments. “You know, nothing truly prepares you for the demands of the Oval Office”, he said alluding to Trump.
“Even in the middle of crisis, she listens to people, and keeps her cool, and treats everybody with respect”, he said. Like several other speakers Wednesday, he recalled that she was in the room when his administration made the decision to kill Osama Bin Laden. Obama raised his eyebrows: “Don’t boo, vote!” he commanded.
The Democratic president says at his party’s convention that “by so many measures our country is stronger and more prosperous than when we started”. He’s not offering any real solutions to those problems, he’s just offering slogans and he’s offering fear… “He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election”.
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“That is another bet that Donald Trump will lose”, Obama continued. He then offered stories about people who had written him during his time in office, people who Obama said exemplified America’s ideals.
