Joe Biden is officially Democratic nominee
Wife Jill says he’s able to make nation whole
The presidential roll call was unlike any other in political history, live and taped, stitched together into a 30-minute journey across 57 states and territories, from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee.
Even though the result was never in doubt, there was significant political and personal drama at play Tuesday night.
In his third run for the White House, Joe Biden won the prize he had long sought, the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
The former vice president will now embark on the most consequential chapter of his near half-century career in politics, a fall showdown against President Donald Trump set against the backdrop of a country struggling against the coronavirus pandemic.
Throughout the convention’s second night, Democrats sought to set the terms of the debate, framed around the question of leadership.
From his wife, Jill, to former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Biden was portrayed as a public servant in touch with the people, a father and grandfather who has known personal joy and shattering heartbreak.
“How do you make a broken family whole?” Jill Biden said during her speech from Brandywine High School in Wilmington, Delaware. “The same way you make a nation whole. With love and understanding — and with small acts of compassion. With bravery. With unwavering faith.”
Biden’s losses are part of his story.
The deaths of his first wife, Neilia, and daughter Naomi in a 1972 car accident, and the 2015 death from a brain tumor of his son Beau, Delaware’s attorney general.
“There are times when I couldn’t imagine how he did it — how he put one foot in front of the other and kept going,” Jill Biden said. “But I’ve always understood why he did it . ... He does it for you.”
Carter, who at 95 is America’s oldest living former president, and his wife Rosalyn, spoke warmly of Biden in a taped segment. The Carters were not seen on camera.
“Joe has the experience, character, and decency to bring us together and restore America’s greatness,” Carter said. “We deserve a person with integrity and judgment, someone who is honest and fair, someone who is committed to what is best for the American people.”
In a brief address, Clinton offered praise for Biden and heaped scorn on Trump.
“COVID hit us much harder than it had to,” Clinton said in criticizing the president’s handling of the crisis.
“At a time like this, the Oval Office should be a command center,” Clinton said of Trump. “Instead, it’s a storm center. There’s only chaos. Just one thing never changes — his determination to deny responsibility and shift the blame. The buck never stops there.”
Likening the election of a president to a job interview, Clinton said voters have to decide whether to “renew” the president’s contract or “hire someone else.”
“If you want a president who defines the job as spending hours a day watching TV and zapping people on social media, he’s your man,” Clinton said. “Denying, distracting and demeaning works great if you’re trying to entertain or inflame. But in a real crisis, it collapses like a house of cards.”
Clinton said Democrats are offering voters “a very different choice: a go-towork president. A down-to-earth, getthe-job-done guy. A man with a mission: to take responsibility, not shift the blame; concentrate, not distract; unite, not divide. Our choice is Joe Biden.”
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, excoriated Trump’s foreign policy.
“Donald Trump pretends Russia didn’t attack our elections,” Kerry said. “And now, he does nothing about Russia putting a bounty on our troops. So he won’t defend our country. He doesn’t know how to defend our troops. The only person he’s interested in defending is himself.”
Colin Powell, who served as Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, said he backed Biden.
“Joe Biden will be a president we will all be proud to salute,” Powell said.
Former Acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, a Barack Obama appointee who was ousted by Trump 10 days into his term for refusing to enforce a travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries, called out the president for alleged ethical lapses.
Speaking from Atlanta, Yates said that “from the moment President Trump took office, he’s used his position to benefit himself rather than our country. He’s trampled the rule of law, trying to weaponize our Justice Department to attack his enemies and protect his friends.”
“Rather than standing up to Vladimir Putin he fawns over a dictator who is still trying to interfere in our elections,” Yates said.
She said the president’s attacks on the FBI, the press, inspectors general and judges “all have one purpose: to remove any check on his abuse of power.”
Keynote of 17 ‘rising stars’
Democrats staged an unusual keynote speech, dividing the task among 17 so-called “rising stars” in the party.
They were led by Stacy Abrams, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in Georgia in 2018.
The speech took on Trump over his response to the coronavirus pandemic, portraying the president as a man who “is looking out for himself,” as opposed to Biden, who was raised in a middle class family and understands the struggles of everyday life.
“A new generation of leaders is rising up,” said state Sen. Malcolm Kenyatta of Pennsylvania.
“This nation belongs to all of us,” Abrams said, who called Biden “a steady experienced public servant,” who can lead the nation out of crisis.
“We know Joe Biden,” she said. “America, we need Joe Biden.”
Amid the speeches, there was also the work of the convention, including the passage of rules and the party platform.
There was also the formality of the presidential nominations and the roll call, overseen by Jason Rae of Glendale, the secretary of the Democratic National Committee.
And here, there was a generational moment, perhaps the passing of a symbolic torch as U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez helped nominate Bernie Sanders.
A New York Times elevator operator, Jacquelyn Brittany, whose interaction with Biden became a viral moment early in the campaign, was among those who nominated the former vice president.
Sanders, who dropped out of the presidential race a day after the Wisconsin primary in April, in a Monday convention speech urged his supporters to back Biden, saying the country would face only setbacks if Trump won a second term.
During the roll call itself, Democrats sought to capture the broad sweep of the modern American story and the diversity of the party.
U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama cast votes from the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where in 1965 the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis and other civil rights marchers were beaten by Alabama State troopers.
Sewell recalled Lewis’ legacy and pressed to restore the Voting Rights Act, which was partially invalidated in 2013 by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Former presidential candidates Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Pete Buttigieg of Indiana and Tim Ryan of Ohio participated, along with an Arizona teacher, Connecticut firefighter, Kansas farmer, Missouri bricklayer and Nevada meatpacking employee.
Votes were announced from in front of Biden’s childhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and at a train platform in Wilmington, Delaware, where he once commuted daily to Washington D.C.
At the Wisconsin Center, where Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett had gaveled in the proceedings, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes announced Wisconsin’s votes.
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you all,” Biden said after the roll call.