DNC Day 2 – Unanimous Nomination And A Human Face To Hillary

Democrats made history last night when they made Hillary Clinton the first female nominee of a major party in our country’s history. The roll-call of the states ended with Vermont which cast its votes and then turned the microphone over to Bernie Sanders who proposed that the convention make the nomination of Hillary Clinton unanimous. The motion passed in a euphoric acclamation. About 150 die-hard Sanders’ delegates walked out but that only represented about 8% of Bernie’s delegates and 3% of all the delegates gathered in Philadelphia. And Sanders’ strong endorsement of Clinton with his words last night and this morning and his actions tonight will bring even more of his voters around in the end.

The rest of the evening was spent trying to a more humanizing face on Hillary, the more introverted of the two Clintons. The Mothers of the Black Lives Matter Movement all gave emotional speeches on what it was like to lose their children to police and gun violence. Various beneficiaries of Hillary’s policies and causes spoke of how Hillary became their friends and remained friends until this day, all of it far away from the media spotlight. I thought these testimonials, especially those of the survivors and responders of 9/11, were incredible potent witnesses for her. Among those testimonials was one from Rep. Joseph Crowley of Queens who lost his cousin at 9/11. He recounted her fight to get funds to help New York recover and her fight for the health and safety of first responders in the years after. But his most devastating lines were, “But let me ask you something. Where was Donald Trump in the days, and months, and years after 9/11? He didn’t stand at the Pile. He didn’t lobby Congress for help. He didn’t fight for the first responders. Nope. He cashed in. Collecting $150,000 in federal funds intended to help small businesses recover — even though days after the attack Trump said his properties were not affected. Hillary sought these funds to help local mom and pop shops get back on their feet. Donald Trump sought a payday for his empire. It was one of our nation’s darkest days, but to Trump, it was just another chance to make a quick buck.” It was a powerful testimonial to Hillary and an epic takedown of Trump and I imagine that this theme will be repeated in the months ahead.

Madeleine Albright gave a good speech about Hillary’s accomplishments as Secretary of State as well as pointing out that Trump has already weakened America’s standing in the world with his rash statements questioning our alliances and his intolerant remarks about Muslims and immigrants.

That cleared the way for Bill Clinton, the Big Dog, for the keynote speech of the evening. He gave a somewhat rambling account of meeting and marrying Hillary and their life together. He managed to weave a story of her various accomplishments as a “change-maker” while being a wife and a mother. The list of her efforts to help the underserved and the underprivileged was lengthy and his description of the life they were living before they became famous also connected with the audience. He did a pretty good job of providing the personal background to Hillary while emphasizing her life-long commitment to getting things done to improve people’s lives. He wrapped it up by contrasting the “cartoon” image of Hillary the RNC provided versus the real one that delegates heard throughout the night. It probably wasn’t the best speech Bill Clinton ever gave, but it did do the job it was meant to do.

All in all, it was a pretty successful night, starting with the unanimous nomination by acclamation and ending with Hillary recognizing the history making moment for all the women and little girls that her nomination brings.