The former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state will step out of the shadows of presidents past and present on Thursday for her chance to persuade Americans that she is the best choice to helm a nation looking for a new era of leadership.
President Barack Obama anointed her the inheritor of his legacy Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention. Delivering a passionate case for his onetime rival, Obama declared Clinton not only can defeat the “deeply pessimistic vision” of Republican Donald Trump but also realize the “promise of this great nation.”
Summoning his most famous line from that 2008 campaign, Obama said: “America isn’t about ‘Yes he will.’ It’s about ‘Yes we can.’”
Wednesday’s display was the picture of diversity that Democrats have sought to frame the whole week: The first African-American president symbolically seeking to hand the weightiest baton in the free world to a woman. It climaxed a parade of speeches over the past 72 hours — from men and women, gay and straight, white, Black and Hispanic, young and old — hoping to cast the Republicans as out-of-touch social conservatives led by an unhinged and unscrupulous tycoon.
Reeling off his greatest hits as president, from the auto industry bailout and health care overhaul to landmark deals on climate change and Iran’s nuclear program, Obama said the choice was between Trump vision of “a country where we turn against each other, and turn away from the rest of the world” and “the America I know.”
He evoked Ronald Reagan, something that drew criticism from Clinton when they were rivals, to contrast the Republican icon’s vision of America as “shining city on a hill” with Trump’s description of the U.S. as “a divided crime scene.”
“America is already great. America is already strong,” Obama added. “And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump.”
Trump did his best to steal the spotlight Wednesday.
Following reports Russia hacked Democratic Party emails, Trump said he’d like to see Moscow find the thousands of emails Clinton deleted from the account she used as secretary of state. The appearance of him encouraging Russia to meddle in the presidential campaign enraged Democrats and Republicans, even as he dismissed suggestions from Obama and other Democrats that Moscow already was intervening on his behalf.
Hours later, Trump told Fox News he was being “sarcastic” although shortly after his remarks on Wednesday, he tweeted that Russia should share the emails with the FBI.
Trump’s comments fed Democrats’ contentions that the billionaire businessman is unqualified to be commander in chief. He has no national security experience and has dismissed decades of U.S. foreign policy constants, like standing by NATO allies that long suffered under Russian domination. Yet in a news conference Wednesday, Trump tried to turn the table on Clinton, saying he believed it unsafe for her to receive national security briefings in light of her mishandling of classified information via email while in office.
On Thursday, Democrats continued to claim it was Trump who is a “dangerous” choice.
“It’s an existential choice for the country,” the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, said of the election in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Wednesday night, Vice President Joe Biden, in what was likely the last prime-time speech of his political life, Vice President Joe Biden delivered a roaring case for Clinton. It was a Biden special, rich with his regular-guy folksiness, misty-eyed storytelling and hard hits.
Trump’s “cynicism and undoubtedly his lack of empathy and compassion can be summed up in that phrase he is most proud of making famous: ‘You’re fired.’”
After a quarter-century just behind the men in charge, Clinton on Thursday gets her turn alone with the American public for what is likely the most important speech of her career. She will be tasked with winning the trust of a public deeply skeptical of her honesty, polls show.
Some Democrats still aren’t convinced, a sentiment underscored by the protests of a small but boisterous set of supporters of her primary challenger Bernie Sanders. Gabriel McArthur, a Sanders delegate from suburban Denver said anything short of an “hours-long heart-to-heart” with the candidate will likely leave him cold.
Still, Clinton, who isn’t known for her oratory, will aim to move others like him. She’ll lean heavily on the “stronger together” campaign theme, invoking her 1996 book “It Takes a Village,” her campaign said.
She also will continue to woo moderate Republicans who may be unnerved by Trump, but unconvinced by Clinton.
That effort was hammered home Wednesday by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who implored Americans to “elected a sane, competent person with sane, international experience.”
Retired Marine General John R. Allen, who has endorsed Clinton, will be joined on stage Thursday night by a group of veterans to focus on Clinton’s national security credentials. Allen was Deputy Commander of U. S. Central Command and a former commander of the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, will introduce her mother.
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Klapper contributed from Washington.
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