Biden seeking party, national unity in convention climax
WILMINGTON, DEL. » Joe Biden, in accepting the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night, hoped to not only unify the diverse Democratic Party but the deeply divided America as well.
The former vice president, who at 77 years old would be the oldest president ever elected and the Democratic Party’s official standard bearer in the campaign to defeat President Donald Trump in November.
A day after California Sen. Kamala Harris became the first Black woman to accept a major party’s vice presidential nomination, Biden campaign co-chairwoman Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Delaware congresswoman, predicted that Thursday would be “a whole ‘nother level of special.”
Above all, Biden is expected to focus on uniting the deeply divided nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation and the national awakening on racial justice.
“I knew that of all the incredible candidates we have across that platform, Joe Biden was the one who could unite us. From Harlem to the heartland, he was the one who could unite us,” Blunt Rochester said in a briefing previewing the final night of the four-day convention.
Change in focus
The positive focus expected Thursday night marks a break from the dire warnings offered by former President Barack Obama and others the night before. The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Trump is reelected, while Harris and 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton declared that Americans’ lives and livelihoods are at risk.
Throughout their convention, the Democrats have summoned a collective urgency about the dangers of Trump as president. In 2016, they dismissed and sometimes trivialized him. In the days leading up to Biden’s acceptance speech, they cast him as an existential threat to the country.
The tone signals anew that the fall campaign between Trump and Biden, already expected to be among the most negative of the past half-century, will be filled with rancor and recrimination.
Beyond Biden’s highly anticipated speech, Thursday’s program is designed to highlight the diversity of the Democratic Party and the nation he hopes to lead.
Speakers include four former rivals: Pete Buttigieg, who was trying to become the nation’s first openly gay president; New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker; New York ultra-billionaire Michael Bloomberg and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will also be featured, in addition to Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs while serving in Iraq.
Biden’s Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy. They have drawn a sharp contrast with Trump’s policies and personality, portraying him as cruel, self-centered and woefully unprepared to manage virtually any of the nation’s mounting crises and policy challenges.
It was unclear if tearing down Trump will be enough to propel Biden to victory in November.
Assembling pieces
Just 75 days before the election, the former vice president must energize the disparate factions that make up the modern Democratic Party, a coalition that spans generation, race and ideology. And this fall voters must deal with concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic that has formed health risks for those who want to vote in person, and postal slowdowns for mail-in ballots, which Democrats blame on Trump.
The pandemic has also forced Biden’s team to abandon the typical pageantry and rely instead on a highly-produced, all-virtual affair that has failed to draw the same television ratings as past conventions.
The silence was noticeable Wednesday night, for example, as Harris took the stage to make history in the cavernous hall inside the Chase Center in downtown Wilmington. She was flanked by American flags but no family, and her audience consisted of a few dozen reporters and photographers.
It’s Trump’s turn next. The Republican president, who abandoned plans to host his convention in North Carolina and in Florida, is expected to break tradition and accept his nomination from the White House lawn next week.
On Wednesday, Harris, a 55-year-old California senator and the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, addressed race and equality in a personal way Biden cannot when he formally accepts his party’s presidential nomination.
“There is no vaccine for racism. We have got to do the work,” Harris declared.
“We’ve got to do the work to fulfill the promise of equal justice under law,” she added. “None of us are free until all of us are free.”
Obama, another barrier breaker, called Biden his brother before pleading with voters to vote, to “embrace your own responsibility as citizens — to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure. Because that’s what is at stake right now. Our democracy.”
Beyond the carefully scripted confines of the virtual convention, there have been modest signs of tension between the moderate and progressive wings of Biden’s Democratic Party.