We must unite to stop Trump, says Hillary the history-maker
HILLARY Clinton has urged supporters of her rival Bernie Sanders to unite against the threat from Donald Trump as she hailed her Democratic presidential nomination victory as a ‘milestone’ for women.
Victories in primaries in California and three other states sealed Mrs Clinton’s historic success in becoming the first woman to claim the nomination of either of the two major US political parties.
The former first lady, senator and secretary of state spoke to supporters at a raucous event in New York, and placed her achievement in the context of the long history of the women’s rights movement.
‘Thanks to you, we have reached a milestone,’ Mrs Clinton said. ‘We all owe so much to who came before.’ However, her socialist rival Bernie Sanders won in Montana and North Dakota, and so far refuses to quit.
Although Mrs Clinton was effusive in her praise for Sanders and his supporters, he vowed to contest next week’s final primary in the District of Columbia although he admitted it was a ‘very, very steep fight’.
Mrs Clinton already has enough delegates to qualify as the Democratic nominee at next month’s party convention.
But Mr Sanders hopes to convince many of the party’s 720 superdelegates – senior Democratic figures who also have a vote to decide the presidential candidate – to switch from Mrs Clinton.
The battle between Mrs Clinton and Mr Sanders has proved acrimonious with the Vermont senator portraying himself as a ‘revolutionary’ fighting the corruption and injustices of traditional US politics.
He regards the Democratic Party, and particularly Mrs Clinton’s lucrative links with Wall Street, as part of the problem.
Many of his supporters say they do not trust her and regard her as part of an elite.
Senior Democrats fear that his idealistic and alienated fans may hand victory to Mr Trump and the Republicans if they refuse to vote for Mrs Clinton – or worse, even switch to Mr Trump.
Mr Trump has called on those supporters to back him instead, but Mr Sanders said his campaign would not support a ‘candidate whose major theme is bigotry’.
Barack Obama is expected to imminently formally endorse Mrs Clinton, his former secretary of state and presidential rival.
Mrs Clinton, who was beaten to the 2008 election nomination by Mr Obama, was given a rousing reception by ecstatic supporters waving US flags and chanting ‘Hillary’ at a Tuesday night rally in New York. She told her
‘Trump a bully and unfit to be president’
supporters her victory ‘is not about one person, it belongs to generations of women and men’.
When she was defeated by Mr Obama, Mrs Clinton described how she had failed to ‘shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling’. But at the time she swiftly urged her supporters to rally behind her rival.
By contrast, Mr Sanders, 74, has given no such indication.
She said: ‘It may be hard to see tonight, but we are all standing under a glass ceiling right now. This campaign is about making sure there are no ceilings, no limits on anybody.’
Consoling Mr Sanders’s supporters, Mrs Clinton, who was joined on stage by husband Bill, said: ‘It never feels good to put your heart into a cause or candidate you believe in and come up short. I know that feeling well.’
Describing the Sanders’ campaign as ‘extraordinary’, she called on all Americans – including Republicans – to ‘keep working toward a better, fairer, strong America’.
She described Mr Trump as a ‘bully’ and ‘temperamentally unfit’ to be president.