Clinton to make case for WH

‘Nobody more qualified’ than Hillary: Obama DNC Day 3 mostly quiet

PHILADELPHIA, July 28, (Agencies): Hillary Clinton was to make her case for the White House on Thursday night, armed with a ringing endorsement from President Barack Obama and the crucial backing of the opponent she beat to become the Democratic Party candidate for November’s election.

Capping a Democratic Party convention that has sought to heal divisions from a protracted primary battle, former Secretary of State Clinton, 68, was to accept the nomination to run against Republican Donald Trump. In doing so, she will become the first woman presidential candidate of a major US party.

In her speech in Philadelphia, Clinton needs to make a convincing argument that she can bring about change, while still representing the legacy of Obama, who is nearing the end of his second term with high approval ratings. She also needs to make inroads with voters who find her untrustworthy.

Seeking to rally the party on Wednesday night, Obama offered rousing support for Clinton and an optimistic view of the United States that he contrasted with Trump’s vision.

Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton and a former US senator, was likely to issue a similarly upbeat message. She aimed to draw on an idea that has driven her throughout her career, that every American should be given the chance to fulfill their potential, a campaign aide said.

Clinton, who was to be introduced on the stage by her daughter, Chelsea, was still working on her speech on Thursday, the aide said.

In his speech, Obama urged Democrats to enable Clinton to finish the job he started with his election in 2008.

“There has never been a man or woman, not me, not Bill — nobody more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States,” he told the cheering audience.

“Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me. I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me,” he said. As he finished, Clinton joined him on stage where they hugged, clasped hands and waved to the crowd.

Clinton lost the Democratic nomination to Obama in 2008, and went on to be his secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. She promises to tackle income inequality, tighten gun control and rein in Wall Street if she wins the Nov. 8 election.

Trump, a 70-year-old New York businessman who has never held political office, is running just ahead of Clinton in a RealClearPolitics average of recent national opinion polls.

He has hammered Clinton as untrustworthy, and Republicans have painted her as a Washington insider who would represent a “third term” for what they view as failed policies under Obama’s two-term presidency.

The Democratic gathering began on a note of discord on Monday, with backers PHILADELPHIA, July 28, (AP): The tension between Bernie Sanders activists and Democratic Party brass set to crown Hillary Clinton their nominee lingered in pockets of Philadelphia as the final day of the convention dawned.

Actors and delegates took center stage in smaller and more subdued protests by Bernie Sanders supporters on a mostly quiet Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention.

Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Shailene Woodley and Rosario Dawson joined forces as night fell to protest what they consider slights against loyalists of Sanders, a Vermont US senator who competed against Hillary Clinton in the party’s presidential primaries before endorsing her.

Sarandon said convention organizers scuttled planned remarks from prominent Sanders surrogate Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator, at the convention on Tuesday night.

“There’s been a lot of difficulty in executing the will of Bernie Sanders’ people and surrogates, and this was just a topping for the whole thing because she was ready to go. And she was very, very disappointed,” Sarandon said as the other celebrities joined her on a platform. “This has not gone by lightly, and ... we are upset.”

Late Wednesday, hundreds of protesters

of Bernie Sanders, the US senator from Vermont who lost the nomination to Clinton, reluctant to get behind her and noisily booing her name.

But Sanders himself has urged his supporters to support her, and a string of party leaders have warmly endorsed Clinton. That contrasted with last week’s Republican convention in Cleveland, where many party notables showed their concern about Trump’s rhetoric and policies by staying away.

Wednesday’s display was the picture of diversity that Democrats have sought to frame the whole week: The first African-American president symbolically seeking to hand the weightiest baton in the free world to a woman. It culminated a parade of speeches over the last 72 hours — from men and women, gay and straight, white, black and Hispanic; young and old — hoping to cast the Republicans as out-of-touch social conservatives led by an unhinged and unscrupulous tycoon.

Reeling off his greatest hits as president, from the auto industry bailout and health care overhaul to landmark deals on climate change and Iran’s nuclear program, Obama said the choice was between Trump vision of “a country where we turn against each other, and turn away from the rest of the world” and “the America I know.”

He evoked Ronald Reagan, a move gathered outside the convention site as Vice-President Joe Biden, vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine and President Barack Obama spoke inside. There were two distinct groups of protesters; one peaceful, the other anti-government. At one point a protester’s clothes caught on fire while trying to stomp out the flames on a burning flag. The protester dropped to the ground and rolled around to put the fire out. Another tense moment arose when protesters knocked over part of a security fence, but police quickly moved in and put the fence back up. The Secret Service said seven people were arrested and will be charged with entering a restricted area. A group of peaceful protesters then sat on the ground and sang as the tension in the streets dropped back to normal.

Earlier in the day, half a dozen Sanders delegates spoke to about 300 demonstrators gathered at a plaza near City Hall, about 4 miles from the convention site, for rallies and speeches.

Erika Onsrud, an at-large delegate from Minnesota, told the people in the crowd that they need to continue to fight. Amid cheers, she exhorted them: “Stay awake!”

Other delegates acknowledged that Sanders’ loss was disappointing

that drew criticism from Clinton when they were rivals, to contrast the Republican icon’s vision of America as “shining city on a hill” with Trump’s description of the US as “a divided crime scene.”

“America is already great. America is already strong,” Obama added. “And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump.”

On Thursday, Democrats continued to claim it was Trump who is a “dangerous” choice.

Candidate

“It’s an existential choice for the country,” the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, said of the election in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Kaine was one of several heavy hitters who took the stage Wednesday night, who praised Clinton in Spanish. “Hillary Clinton is ‘lista’,” he said. In what was likely his last prime-time speech of his political life, Vice President Joe Biden delivered a roaring case for Clinton. It was a Biden special, rich with his regular-guy folksiness, mistyeyed storytelling and hard hits.

Trump’s “cynicism and undoubtedly his lack of empathy and compassion can be summed up in that phrase he is most proud of making famous: ‘You’re fired,’” Biden said. “He is trying to tell us he cares about the middle class. Give but told the supporters that they can create change without the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, contending the media contributed to a rigged election.

A few blocks away, police detained 10 protesters at Comcast’s corporate headquarters for holding a sit-in accusing the cable TV giant and NBC owner of not reporting the truth. The demonstrators locked themselves with zip-ties to a rolling gate inside the building. Officers briefly closed the 975-foot-tall skyscraper to all but Comcast employees. All 10 protesters were ticketed and released.

Another group of about a dozen anti-Israel demonstrators protested at a hotel where a number of delegations to the four-day convention were staying. They called for a free Palestine.

The absence of marches was a marked change from earlier in the week, with some Sanders supporters saying their comrades seemed fatigued and frustrated.

Thousands of activists have taken to the streets during the convention to voice support for Sanders and his liberal agenda. On Tuesday night, the Bernie or Bust brigades watched in dismay as Clinton became the first woman nominated for president by a major US political party.

me a break. That is a bunch of malarkey.”

After a quarter-century just behind the men in charge, Clinton on Thursday gets her turn alone with the American public for what is likely the most important speech of her career. She will be tasked with winning the trust of a public deeply skeptical of her honesty, polls show.

Some Democrats still aren’t convinced of her candidacy, either, a sentiment underscored by the protests of a small but boisterous set of supporters of her primary challenger Bernie Sanders.

Clinton’s campaign said she will lean heavily on the “stronger together” campaign theme in her remarks. She will invoke her 1996 book “It Takes a Village” and will continue to woo moderate Republicans. That effort was hammered home Wednesday by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who implored Americans to “elected a sane, competent person with sane, international experience.”

Retired Marine General John R. Allen, who has endorsed Clinton, will be joined on stage Thursday night by a group of veterans to focus on Clinton’s national security credentials. Allen was Deputy Commander of US Central Command and a former commander of the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, will briefly introduce her mother.