Making history
Much of her speech describes opponent as a fear-monger with no policy credibility
Hillary Clinton on Thursday claimed her place in history as the first woman presidential nominee of a major US party, promising economic opportunity for all and rejecting Donald Trump’s dark vision of the United States.
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”.
“I accept your nomination for president of the United States,” she said, as her president husband Bill and their daughter Chelsea looked on.
While she soaked in the historic nature of her accomplishment, the 68-year-old Clinton spent much of the biggest speech of her career taking aim at her Republican opponent, slamming him as a fear-monger with no policy credibility.
In an hourlong address, she laid out an optimistic plan to improve the economy, stressing that “my primary mission as president will be to create more opportunity and more good jobs with rising wages”.
A president for all
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 Obama’s policies, she said the economy “is not yet working the way it should”.
After a bruising primary campaign against Bernie Sanders, and as she savaged Trump, Clinton extended an olive branch of sorts to her skeptics and critics.
“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.”
‘We are not afraid’
The four-day convention has been a parade of party heavyweights — including President Barack Obama who stirringly hailing Clinton as his political heir tweeted after her Thursday speech that “she’s tested. She’s ready. She never quits”.
Clinton spoke of the strains that have been placed on US society during the toxic yearlong 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,” Clinton said. “We will rise to the challenge, just as we always have.”
Clinton 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.”