THIS IS A MOMENT OF RECKONING: CLINTON
‘ POWERFUL FORCES ARE THREATENING TO PULL US APART’
• On the fourth day of a convention defined by division, and months into a dark and often bizarre campaign, Hillary Clinton sought to define herself Thursday as a great uniter and a steady hand in turbulent times.
According to advance excerpts from her speech, Clinton planned to tell Americans they faced a stark choice in November between herself and Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
“America is once again at a moment of reckoning,” she planned to say at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. “Powerful forces are threatening to tear us apart. Bonds of trust and respect are fraying. And just as with our founders, there are no guarantees. It is truly up to us.”
After a lifetime in politics and dec- ades on the national stage, Clinton faced several thorny tasks Thursday. She had to both redefine herself to skeptical voters and take the fight to the unorthodox Trump.
She planned to do that by laying out her country’s troubles, at home and abroad, while presenting a positive vision for the way forward, one defined by unity and common purpose.
“We are clear-eyed about what our country is up against,” her speech said. “But we are not afraid. We will rise to the challenge, just as we always have.”
Clinton trails Trump badly among white working- class men and the excerpts released by her campaign seemed designed at least in part to target those voters.
“My primary mission as president will be to create more opportunity and more good jobs with rising wages right here in the United States,” her speech said. “Especially in 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, from the industrial Midwest to the Mississippi Delta to the Rio Grande.”
Earlier in the evening, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, long a Bernie Sanders supporter, sought to bolster Clinton’s credibility with the working class. “The only thing I’ve seen Donald Trump do when it comes to U. S. trade policy is run his mouth and line his pockets,” he said. “While Trump outsources jobs, Hillary Clinton has a real plan to bring jobs back to America.”
Clinton’s speech was set to cap a four- day convent i on heavy on glitz and high-profile names. Keynote speakers have included her husband, former president Bill Clinton, Vice- President Joe Biden, and on Wednesday night, President Barack Obama. Hollywood stars have appeared on stage, pop stars have performed, and slick videos, directed by the likes of James Cameron, have played in the arena every night.
But the convention hasn’t been without controversy. Angry supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders have booed and jeered. They’ve protested at the security gates and marched in the streets. “I can tell you tonight is a depressing night in American history,” said Vicke Kepling, a Missouri delegate inside the arena Thursday. “The whole win was based on cheating and nobody’s even talking about it. Nobody’s even acknowledging here at the DNC that there was election fraud.”
But while the protests continued Thursday, they felt more like a sideshow and less like the main event. By Thursday, security had pushed the demonstrators back. A small huddle stood as delegates walked by, yelling themselves hoarse but barely audible in the rain.
Indeed, Clinton’s pitch for unity Thursday seemed aimed as much at centrist Republicans as at the Sanders fringe. On Wednesday, former Republicans, including Michael Bloomberg and retired rear- admiral John Huston, attacked Trump as unfit for office and endorsed Clinton.
But while centrists and even some l ongtime Republicans have turned on Trump, Clinton has to take advantage in the polls. Her personal popularity remains poor. Many question her integrity. At the Republican National Convention last week, she was condemned as a traitor and crook.
There is a fringe Clinton will never win. Some hate her beyond all logic and fact. Many others have deep misgivings about her honesty and policy record. But in her speech Thursday, Clinton was set to appeal to as wide a coalition as she could. “Every generation of Americans has come together to make our country freer, fairer, and stronger,” her speech said. “None of us can do it alone.”