US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Democratic vice presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine take the stage at a campaign rally in Miami, Florida, U.S. July 23, 2016. Credit: Reuters
Philadelphia: Hillary Clinton secured the Democratic Party’s US presidential nomination on Tuesday, coming back from a stinging 2008 defeat in her first White House run and surviving a bitter primary fight to become the first woman to head the ticket of a major party in US history.
In a symbolic show of party unity, Clinton’s former rival, US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, told the chairwoman from the convention floor that Clinton, 68, should be selected as the party’s nominee at the dramatic climax of a state-by-state roll call at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
Capping nearly a quarter century in public life, Clinton will become the party’s standard-bearer against Republican nominee Donald Trump in the November 8 election when she accepts the nomination on Thursday.
“If there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch, let me just say: I may become the first woman president, but one of you is next,” Clinton told the convention via a video satellite link.
In nominating Clinton, delegate after delegate made the point that the selection of a woman was a milestone in America’s 240-year-old history. US women got the right to vote in 1920 after ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, portrayed her in a speech to the convention as a dynamic force for change as he made a case for her White House bid.
“Hillary is uniquely qualified to seize the opportunities and reduce the risks we face, and she is still the best darn change-maker I have ever known,” he said, hitting back at Republican arguments she is a Washington insider tied to the status quo.
The Democratic nominee, who promises to tackle income inequality, tighten gun control and rein in Wall Street if she becomes president, is eager to portray Trump, a businessman and former reality TV show host, as too unstable to sit in the Oval Office.
Trump, 70, who has never held elective office, got a boost in opinion polls from his nomination at the Republican convention last week. He had a 2-point lead over Clinton in a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday, the first time he has been ahead since early May.
Sanders has endorsed Clinton, but some of his supporters protested in Philadelphia against the party leadership’s apparent backing of her during the Democratic primary fight.
Sections of the convention hall were left conspicuously unpopulated as delegates from strongly pro-Sanders delegations, including California, walked out after Sanders moved that Clinton be named the nominee.
‘The real one’
Earlier on Tuesday, delegates from South Dakota had given Clinton 15 votes, formally ensuring that she had more than the 2,383 votes needed to win the nomination. She emerged with a total of 2,842 votes to Sanders’ 1,865.
In 2008, Clinton was the early favorite in the Democratic race but lost a hard-fought nomination battle to first-term US Senator Barack Obama, who went on to become America’s first black president.
Bill’s speech on Tuesday night offered an unusual twist to the warm spousal endorsement of a presidential candidate traditionally given at party conventions by a wife, not a man – let alone a former president of the United States.
He said Clinton had been a political activist since the couple’s early days as law students together. He told how she gave legal aid services to poor people and went undercover to expose a segregationist school in Alabama in the 1970s.
Clinton put forth an alternative narrative to the Republican portrayal of his wife as a power-hungry politician who bends the rules and lacks transparency in her political dealings.
Polls show many Americans distrust Clinton. Controversy over her use of a private email server for official business while she served as America’s top diplomat dogged her during the primary election season.
She came under relentless attack at the Republican convention in Cleveland, as speakers assailed her over the email controversy and her record as secretary of state and painted her as out of touch with ordinary Americans. Delegates weighed in with repeated chants of “Lock her up.”
“They’re running against a cartoon,” Bill said in his speech. “Cartoons are two-dimensional, they’re easy to absorb. Life in the real world is complicated and real change is hard, and a lot of people even think it’s boring.”
Then speaking directly to the crowd, he said to cheers and applause: “Good for you because earlier today you nominated the real one.”
President from 1993 to 2001, Bill, 69, left office with high approval ratings and is known as one of the most powerful political orators in the country.
Trump appeared to approve of Bill’s appearance. “Smart move by the Democrats to have Pres. @billclinton play a key role in their convention,” he wrote on Twitter.
Supporters of Clinton say her Washington credentials show she has the experience needed for the White House during tough times as the United States tries to hasten its economic recovery and tackle challenges abroad like ISIS and the rise of China.
Detractors view her as too cozy with the establishment and say she carries political baggage dating back to the start of her husband’s first White House term in the 1990s.
(Reuters)