Soaking up a historic moment
Having secured the Democratic nomination for the US presidential election, the former first lady sets her sights on the bigger task at hand — winning
illary Clinton on Thursday claimed her place in history as the first woman presidential nominee of a major United States party. Pledging to be a president for “all Americans,” the former secretary of state received thunderous cheers from thousands of delegates in the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia where she called for unity in a nation at a “state of reckoning”.
Hillary repeated the convention’s theme of “stronger together”, declaring that her lifelong goal has been to ensure that Americans can use their talent and ambition to strengthen the nation.
“And so it is with humility, determination, and boundless confidence in America’s promise, that I accept your nomination for president of the United States,” she said, as her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea looked on.
While she soaked in the historic nature of her accomplishment, the 68-year-old Hillary spent much of the biggest speech of her career taking aim at her Republican opponent Donald Trump, slamming him as a fear-monger with no policy credibility.
In an hour-long address, she laid out an optimistic plan to improve the US economy, stressing that “my primary mission as president will be to create more opportunity and more good jobs with rising wages”. However, Hillary faces a major trust deficit among a US public that has known her for the past quarter century. Rocked by a series of scandals, she is now about as unpopular with voters as her Republican rival. Her remarks signalled a plan to focus attention on down-and-out communities that have felt ignored by the slow and erratic recovery from the Great Recession.
Her efforts will focus particularly on places “that for too long have been left out and left behind, from our inner cities to our small towns, Indian Country to Coal Country,” she said. And in a bold admission for a candidate seeking to build on US President Barack Obama’s policies, she said the economy “is not yet working the way it should”.
After a bruising primary campaign against fellow Democrat contender Bernie Sanders, Hillary extended an olive branch of sorts to her sceptics and critics. “I will carry all of your voices and stories with me to the White House,” she said. “I will be a president for Democrats, Republicans, and independents,” she added. “For the struggling, the striving and the successful. For those who vote for me and those who don’t. For all Americans.”
Hillary spoke of the strains that have been placed on US society during the toxic year-long campaign featuring heated rhetoric from Trump and other candidates. “We are clear-eyed about what our country is up against. But we are not afraid,” Hillary said. “We will rise to the challenge, just as we always have.”
‘Real crisis’
She also rejected much of the Trump rhetoric that has been a constant on the trail, while mocking him as a thin-skinned candidate who “loses his cool” at the slightest provocation. “Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis,” she said. “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”
There are now just 101 days until the election, and the pair will face off in their first presidential debate in late September.
Long a lightning rod on the right, Hillary is making a targeted appeal to Republicans who challenge Trump’s claim to the conservative mantle and fear his possible presidency.
Hillary’s final day of the Democratic National Convention featured speeches from a former member of former president Ronald Reagan’s administration and a US Chamber of Commerce official who is heading a GOP group supporting Hillary, part of an expanded outreach to Republican voters and donors. “I knew Ronald Reagan. I worked for Ronald Reagan,” said Doug Elmets, a Republican now backing Clinton. “Donald Trump, you are no Ronald Reagan!”
In her first post-convention TV interview, Hillary is slated to appear on Fox News Sunday tomorrow. She is holding an event in Republican-leaning Nebraska on Monday, giving her the opportunity to reach Republican voters. Obama won an electoral vote in an Omaha area congressional district in 2008.
The former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state has been the frequent Republican target during her more than three decades in national politics, most recently for her use of a private email server for government business while at the State Department.
Republicans said that history and her high negative numbers among rank-and-file Republican voters make it unlikely she’ll find many cross-over voters. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said on Wednesday in Philadelphia that Trump’s fight against “Washington insiders” was prone to turn off some Republicans, who also argue she should pay more attention to her own base.
But Democrats view Trump’s provocative statements and the failed “Never Trump” movement as leading indicators in their ability to win over college-educated Republicans who have been wary of the businessman’s foreign policy views or incendiary statements about Mexican-Americans, Muslims and women. Hillary hopes to win over not only the hearts of Republican voters but also the wallets of some of the party’s donors.