JB
PHILADELPHIA — She was swathed in white, with all the multiple-choice symbolisms that go with that fact, pant-suit or not.
She began her speech of acceptance with thanks to daughter Chelsea, who had introduced her, and with courtesy nods to the two male Democrats who had preceded her in the presidency, which, as her party’s formal nominee, she now hopes to achieve herself:
Her husband Bill, “my Explainer-in-Chief….the Man from Hope,” and Barack Obama, “the Man of Hope.”
Both had apotheosized her — former President Clinton on Tuesday night of the Democratic convention now ending with (literally) blazes of glory, current President Obama on the next night, when he told the teeming audience of delegates and spectators and the millions watching from elsewhere, electronically, that no one, “not Bill, not me,” had ever come to the presidency better prepared than her, Hillary Clinton.
And she thanked her chief rival for the nomination:
I want to thank Bernie Sanders.
Bernie, your campaign inspired millions of Americans, particularly the young people who threw their hearts and souls into our primary.
You’ve put economic and social justice issues front and center, where they belong.
And to all of your supporters here and around the country:
I want you to know, I’ve heard you.
Your cause is our cause.
Our country needs your ideas, energy, and passion.
That’s the only way we can turn our progressive platform into real change for America.
Nor did Hillary Clinton omit from her attention the remaining obstacle to her quest — Donald J. Trump, the outspoken billionaire developer and celebrity who had, out of nowhere, come to bear the standard of the opposition party, the very patrimony of which she would deny him:
He’s taken the Republican Party a long way … from “Morning in America” to “Midnight in America.”
He wants us to fear the future and fear each other.
Well, a great Democratic President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, came up with the perfect rebuke to Trump more than eighty years ago, during a much more perilous time.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Now we are clear-eyed about what our country is up against.
But we are not afraid.
We will rise to the challenge, just as we always have.
She would, in her speech, associate herself with all political callings:
I will be a President for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
For the struggling, the striving and the successful.
For those who vote for me and those who don’t.
For all Americans.
But there would be yet another nod to Sanders, the “democratic socialist” who had run her so close and whose call for a political revolution had mobilized millions of potential cadres for the November election. There was no doubt that her rival had basically co-authored a party platform that would, as she said, “help working people in our country get ahead and stay ahead.”
Further:
Bernie Sanders and I will work together to make college tuition-free for the middle class and debt-free for all!
We will also liberate millions of people who already have student debt.
And even further, after she’d laid out a program of further governmental incentives. How would she pay for them?:
…[H]ere’s how: Wall Street, corporations, and the super rich are going to start paying their fair share of taxes.
Not because we resent success. Because when more than 90 percent of the gains have gone to the top 1 percent, that’s where the money is.
Her motto of the day, and perhaps of the campaign to come, was “Stronger Together.” Over the next few days, in this space and in the Flyer issue of August 4, we’ll take a more detailed look at how Hillary Clinton made history by becoming the first woman nominated for President by a major party, how her convention went, and what she intends to do if elected.
And we’ll make comparisons to how her opponent, Donald Trump, got to where he is, as well, to what he intends to do, and more about his prospects, going forth from his own convention.
Meanwhile, here are two looks from Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, the first a spirited performance by Katy Perry, the second Hillary Clinton and friends in the post-speech celebration:
Here’s Hillary!
Here’s Hillary! (2)
