Sanders supporters were already dismayed that Clinton passed over liberal favorites like U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of MA to select the more moderate U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her vice presidential running mate.
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The party announced Monday it would kick off its convention with speeches from some of its most popular figures. Elizabeth Warren, a favorite of liberals and one of the party’s toughest critics of Trump. Sanders and first lady Michelle Obama will also take the stage.
The kickoff lineup had always been meant to appeal to the party’s restive liberal wing, but that task has become unexpectedly urgent by the trove of 19,000 leaked emails.
Clinton campaign officials pointed the finger at Russian military intelligence agencies. “Trump has made bigotry and hatred the cornerstone of his campaign”.
“The election [Democrat primary] was cheated, it was rigged from the beginning we knew it”, Sanders supporter Eileen Cook told Fox News’ Leland Vittert in Philadelphia Monday.
I might even vote Trump.
It wasn’t immediately clear how WikiLeaks received copies of the internal Democratic emails.
Democrats have known about the hack since April, when party officials discovered malicious software on their computers.
A cybersecurity firm the Democrats employed found traces of at least two sophisticated hacking groups on their network – both of which have ties to the Russian government.
Those hacks vacuumed up at least a year’s worth of chats, emails and research on Trump, according to a person knowledgeable about the breach who wasn’t authorized to discuss it publicly.
“You can’t roll over people and expect them to come up smiling”, said James Zogby, a Sanders supporter and president of the Arab American Institute. Trump declared on Twitter: “The Dems Convention is cracking up”. Sanders will meet with his delegates on Monday afternoon and will convey “more about how to keep the political revolution he started alive”, he said.
Reports from the convention indicate Sanders supporters reacted negatively when he voiced support for Clinton in a Monday speech, and havepanti-Clinton protests planned throughout the week.
He got loud, prolonged applause when he mentioned Wasserman Shultz’s resignation as party chair, saying it “opens up the possibility of new leadership at the top of the Democratic Party that will stand with working people and that will open the doors to the party to those people who want real change”.
The major threats of disruption appear to revolve around Wasserman Schultz and the party’s continued use of superdelegates in the primary process. The emails seemed to show the party had favored Clinton over her rival, Vermont Sen.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will instead gavel in today’s festivities.
For weeks before the convention, the Oshkosh Republican insisted he wouldn’t attend.
“Now we need to move on to the next fight”, meaning Trump, he said. She’s set to step down from the party job after the convention.
But Sandra Williams of Spokane, Washington, said she not ready. Her formal welcome was briefly held up a slight oversight – she forgot the gavel and had to retrieve it off stage.
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Sanders is expected to speak at the convention Monday night. But others were falling in line behind Clinton.
