Former president’s speech caps
historic night in which Hillary Clinton is formally nominated by a Democratic
party seeking to move on from division
Hillary Clinton’s historic moment
finally arrived on Tuesday night, accompanied by an intensely personal speech
from her husband Bill, that sought to recast her image as a symbol of the
political establishment.
“She’s the best darn change-maker I
ever met in my life,” insisted the former president, recalling decades of
Hillary Clinton’s work as socially radical. “This woman has never been
satisfied with the status quo in anything.”
On a night when she became the first woman to be nominated by a major party to run for
the White House, Hillary Clinton fully embraced the historical
significance of the occasion.
She joined the party by live
satellite link from New York to the accompanying sound of breaking glass,
disrupting a black and white montage of the 44 male presidents of the United
States who have gone before her.
“I can’t believe we just put the
biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet,” said Clinton. “If there are any
little girls out there who stayed up late to watch, can I just say, I may
become the first woman president but one of you is next.”
Amid a growing populist challenge
from Republican Donald Trump and scenes of revolt from some Bernie Sanders supporters, her husband’s
powerfully persuasive speech may go some way to restoring momentum to the
campaign.
“Hillary will make us stronger
together,” he said. “You know it, because she spent a lifetime doing it. I hope
you will do it. I hope you will elect her. Those of us who have more yesterdays
than tomorrows tend to think more about our children and grandchildren.”
Delegates react as Hillary Clinton
appears live via satellite at the conclusion of the second day of the
Democratic national convention. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA
The speech capped a pivotal day for
the party, as it sought to move on from scenes of division, and capitalise on
Clinton’s symbolic breakthrough.
Democratic
convention day two: Bill Clinton hails 'change-maker' Hillary – as it happened
Follow live updates from the second
night of the DNC with Bill Clinton speaking after Hillary Clinton is formally
nominated in a historic roll call
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She will address the crowd directly
on Thursday in a formal acceptance of the nomination but for now, speeches
first from Michelle Obama and now from Bill
Clinton have done the most to counter a much darker vision of
America presented by Republican candidate Donald Trump.
“If she wins she’s coming back for
you to take you along on the ride for America’s future,” said former president
Clinton as he recalled campaigning with coalminers in West Virginia and urged
to the party to do more to create more new jobs in the US economy.
It was almost the only overtly
political message of his own. In contrast with past speeches, where the former
president has risked overshadowing the campaign, this one sounded more like the
personal speeches made by the wives of male candidates.
In an azure blue tie that picked out
the colours of the arena, and with his hands shaking slightly, Clinton
delivered a highly personal account of their courtship and marriage that seemed
at times to be an attempt to make America fall in love with the girl he first
met in the spring of 1971.
Skipping over the awkward moments in
a very public, and at times visibly flawed, marriage, Clinton instead said: “I
married my best friend,” recalling two failed proposal attempts and then describing
when Clinton’s water broke during her pregnancy with Chelsea – undoubtedly a
first in a speech about a US presidential candidate.
“The first time I saw her was in a
class on political and civil rights … [she had] big blond hair, big glasses,
wore no makeup and exuded a sense that I found magnetic,” said a clearly
infatuated and somewhat awed Clinton. “I knew I might be starting something I
couldn’t stop.”
After spending nearly an hour
describing her political and personal accomplishments he turned only briefly to
her opponent. And he issued a direct challenge to the two-dimensional “cartoon”
image of his wife which had been painted by her political foes.
“How does this square with what you
heard at the Republican convention? One is real, the other is made up,” said
Bill. “You just have to decide which is which my fellow Americans … Good for
you, because earlier today you nominated the real one.”
Chelsea Clinton and husband Marc
Mezvinsky smile as Hillary Clinton appears on screen live during the second day
of the convention. Photograph: Mark J Terrill/AP
The well-received speech, seeking to
rewrite the accepted wisdom about her candidacy, may help galvanise the
campaign in much the same way Bill Clinton helped revive Barack Obama’s
listless 2012 effort.
But the space was created by another
reconcilation between competing Democrats
earlier in the evening.
Bernie Sanders left the arena with
his head held high on Tuesday. In contrast to the chaotic scenes of protest
from his supporters that marred attempts at unity on day one, the room largely
came together for the historic night, with few boos at all.
The healing was helped by fresh
opportunities for the Sanders campaign to celebrate its success and vow to
continue its fight for more radical social reform. “Because this is a movement
fueled by love it can never be stopped or defeated,” said Hawaii congresswoman
Tulsi Gabbard as she formally proposed Sanders for the nomination.
Shortly before calling for a
suspension of the rules to move directly to the nomination of his former rival,
Sanders appeared emotional as he listened to his tearful brother Larry announce delegates from the
Democrats Abroad primary.
The pageant of democracy hid some
controversy too. A small group of Sanders supporters staged a sit-in of the media centre,
largely in protest at the party’s use of super delegates to bolster Clinton’s
Clinton, was at home margin of
victory in states where Sanders won the most votes.
watching events from her New York
home in Chappaqua, but her daughter Chelsea was on hand in a venue packed with
rising female stars from the Democratic party and wider US society.
Former secretary of state Madeleine
Albright, herself a noted breaker of glass ceilings, received one of the
warmest welcomes of the evening for a commanding speech that listed Clinton’s
foreign affairs experience. Trump, she claimed, “has already done damage just
by running for president”.
Oscar winner Meryl Streep signed off
the night by asking: “What does it take to be the first female anything?
It takes grit and it takes grace.”
Placing Clinton in a lineage of
great American women from Rosa Parks and Amelia Earhart to Harriet Tubman and
Eleanor Roosevelt, she told the delegates: “You people have made history and
you’re gonna make history again in November because Hillary Clinton will be our first woman president
… she’ll be the first but she won’t be the last.”
Lena Dunham, creator and star of the
HBO series Girls, led a series of celebrity endorsements that
joined the dots between Clinton’s breaking of glass ceilings and Trump’s
dismissive comments about women.
“According to Donald Trump, my body
is probably like, a two,” she began. “His rhetoric about women takes us back to
a time when we were meant to be beautiful and silent.”
“Donald Trump is not making America
great again; he is making America hate again,” added fellow actor America
Ferrera, from the TV series Ugly Betty.
Meryl Streep spoke at the Democratic
national convention about Hillary Clinton’s ‘grit and grace’. Photograph: Mike
Segar/Reuters
California senator Barbara Boxer
emerged on stage to the soundtrack from Rocky, Philadelphia’s de facto theme
tune. “Are you ready to elect the very first woman president of these United
States of America?” “Yes!” came a reply that sounded less hesitant than usual,
as confidence among Democrats grows.
Some of the most powerful political
messaging came via prepared video footage that interspersed live speakers with
clips of Trump: exposing his lack of respect for women, or damning him with his
own words as he described pregnancy as an irritant for employers.
There were also the first hints of
the national security issues, which are likely to be a big feature of the latter
part of week. Republicans watching on television have criticised the
Philadelphia convention for ignoring pressing safety issues, in a stadium
devoid of the usual flags that tend to dominate US political sets.
Survivors of the 9/11 attack on New
York paid moving testimony to the support they received from Clinton as a local
senator. “When New York needed her, she was there,” said Lauren Manning, a burn
victim whose emotional speech provided some of the most powerful character
testimony yet.
Others tried a lighter tack in the
campaign’s conscious effort to try to humanise a candidate still regarded as
aloof and chilly by some Americans.
Kentucky secretary of state Alison
Lundergan Grimes began the night recalling that the soon-to-be nominee loves
lifestyle TV “and can devour buffalo wings”. Barbara Mikulski said Clinton
would fight for “macaroni and cheese” issues, boasting again of her taste for
down-to-earth food.
There were echoes of a similar
attempt to add color to the larger-than-life media image of Trump at last
week’s Republican convention, as both campaigns grapple with the historically
low favorability ratings of both candidates. But while Trump was pictured as a
ruthless winner by his business associates, Clinton surrogates queued up to
claim she was a people-person – the opposite of the public stereotype.
Source: The Guardian
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