Bill Clinton on stage tonight at the Democratic Convention.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (and longtime Clinton associate): “I talked to him today. It should be no surprise he’s still working on it. Bill Clinton, when he knows he’s addressing the country, and he knows he’s out there talking about his wife, there is nothing I’ve seen him take more seriously in his life. I remember when I was with him on vacation when he was preparing to do the big speech for Obama’s reelection, I remember the whole vacation he had his yellow legal pad. He does that, he thinks about it. But this is so special tonight, for him to be able to get up there and talk about his wife, and talk about what she can do for this country, obviously nobody knows her better than Bill Clinton. And that’s what he’s going to talk about.” (CNN, 7/26)
No question that Michelle Obama owned the first night of the Democratic Convention, even though Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders spoke …
C-SPAN
Michelle Obama
Democratic National Convention (7/25/2016)
Thank you all, thank you so much. It is hard to believe that it has been eight years since I first came to this convention to talk with you about why I thought my husband should be president. Remember how I told you about his character and his conviction? His decency and grace? The traits we have seen every day he has served our country in the White House.
I also told you about our daughters, how they are the heart of our hearts, the center of our world, and during our time in the White House we have had the joy of watching them grow from bubbly little girls into poised young women.
A journey that started soon after we arrived in Washington when they set off for the first day at the new school. I will never forget that winter morning as I watched our girls, just 7 and 10 years old, pile into those black SUVs with all those men with guns. And that’s all their little faces pressed up against the window, and the only thing I could think was, What have we done? At that moment, I realized that our time in the White House would form the foundation of who they would become. And how well we manage this experience could truly make or break them.
That is what Barack and I think about every day as he tried to guide and protect our girls from the challenges of this unusual life and the spotlight. How we urged them to ignore those who question their father’s citizenship or faith. How we insist that the hateful language they hear from public figures on TV does not represent the true spirit of this country. How we explain that when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. Our motto is, when they go low, we go high.
With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are the most important role model.
Let me tell you, Barack and I take that same approach to our jobs as president and first lady because we know that our words and actions matter, not just to our girls but the children across this country. [Cheering] Kid who say, “I saw you on TV,” “I wrote the report on you for school.” Kids like the little black boy who looked up at my husband, his eyes wide with hope, and he wondered, Is my hair like yours?
Make no mistake about it, this November, when we get to the polls, that is what we are deciding. Not Democrat or Republican, not left or right. In this election, and every election, it is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives. I am you tonight because in this election, there is only one person who I trust with that responsibility, only one person who I believe is truly qualified to be president of the United States, and that is our friend Hillary Clinton. That is right.
I trust Hillary to lead this country because I have seen her lifelong devotion to our nation’s children. Not just her own daughter, who she has raised to perfection. But every child who needs a champion: kids who take the long way to school to avoid the gangs. Kids who wonder how they will ever afford college. Kids whose parents don’t speak a word of English, but dream of a better life; who look to us to dream of what they can be.
Hillary has spent decades doing the relentless work to actually make a difference in their lives. [Cheering] Advocating for kids with disabilities as a young lawyer fighting for children’s health care as first lady, and for quality child care in the senate.
And when she did not win the nomination eight years ago, she did not get angry or disillusioned. Hillary did not pack up and go home because … Hillary knows that this is so much bigger than her own disappointment. She proudly stepped up to serve our country once again as secretary of state, traveling the globe to keep our kids safe. There were moments when Hillary could have decided that this work was too hard, that the price of public service was too high, that she was tired of being [torn] apart for how she looked, or how she talked, or even how she laughed.
But here’s the thing: What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure.
She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life. And when I think about the kind of president that I want for my girls and all our children, that is what I want. I want someone with the proven strength to persevere.
Somebody who knows this job and takes it seriously. Somebody who understands that the issues of our nation are not black or white. It cannot be boiled down to 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military in your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or a tendency to lash out. You need to be steady and measured and well-informed.
I want a president with a record of public service. Someone whose life work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves; we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed. [Cheering] And we give back even when we are struggling ourselves because we know that there there is someone worse off. There but for the grace of God, go I. I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters.
A president that truly believes in the patient that our founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story. When crisis hits, we don’t turn against each other, we listen to each other. We lean on each other. We are always stronger together. I am here tonight because I know that that is the kind of president Hillary Clinton will be and that is why in this election, I’m with her.
You see, Hillary understands that the president is about one thing and one thing only. It is about leaving something better for our kids. That is how we have always moved this country forward — by all of us coming together on behalf of our children. Volunteering to coach the team, teach the Sunday school class, because they know it takes a village.
Heroes of every color and creed who wear the uniform and risk their lives to pass on those blessings of liberty, police officers and protesters in Dallas who all that really want to keep our children safe, people who lined up in Orlando to donate blood because it could have been their son, or their daughter in the club.
Leaders like Tim Kaine, who show our kids what decency and devotion look like. Leaders like Hillary Clinton, who have the guts and the grace to keep coming back and putting those cracks in the highest and hardest glass ceiling until they finally break through, lifting all of us along with her.
That is the story of this country. The story that has brought me to the stage tonight. The story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, who kept on striving, and hoping, and doing what needed to be done. So that today, I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch my daughters —two beautiful intelligent black young women — played with the dog on the White House lawn.
And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters and all of our sons and daughters now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States.
Don’t let anyone ever tell you that this country is not great. That somehow we need to make it great again. Because this right now is the greatest country on Earth.
And as my daughters set out on the world, I want a leader who is worthy of that truth, a leader worthy of my girls’ promise and all of our kids’ promise. A leader who will be guided every day by the love and hope and impossibly big dreams that we all have for our children.
In this election, we cannot sit back and hope that everything works out for the best, we cannot afford to be tired or frustrated or cynical. Hear me: Between now and November, we need to do what we did eight years ago and four years ago. We need to knock on every door, we need to get out every vote, we need to pour every last ounce of passion into electing Hillary Clinton as president of the United States of America. Let’s get to work. Thank you all and God bless.
Here is our live thread for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Michelle Obama speeches on the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Big shocker of the night: FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, a renowned and accurate election prognosticator, has suddenly shifted his prediction in Trump’s direction.
After more than forty years of public service in one form or another since her 1969 commencement speech for graduation from Wellesley, Hillary Clinton stands on the brink of gaining the highest office in the land. Throughout all of those years she has done what she does best: Kept going. No matter what life threw at her she simply gathered herself up, held to her ideals and stayed committed to doing the best job possible, and kept going.
Of all the possible candidates for the office, Hillary Clinton brings to this campaign the lessons of a lifetime of preparation and dedication. President Obama laid out this quality, which more than any other has prepared her to take his place when she is sworn in on January 20, 2017.
“There is no candidate in modern history who has been more prepared than her to be president. You know, we don’t go vacationing together. I think that I’ve got a pretty clear-eyed sense of both her strengths and her weaknesses,” Obama told CBS’ John Dickerson in a wide-ranging interview for “Face the Nation” on Friday. “And what I would say would be that this is somebody who knows as much about domestic and foreign policy as anybody, is tough as nails, is motivated by what’s best for America and ordinary people, understands that in this Democracy that we have things don’t always happen as fast as we’d like. And it requires compromise and grinding it out. She’s not always flashy. And there are better speech makers. But she knows her stuff. And more than anything, that is what is ultimately required to do a good job in this office.”
Wilson Casey in his book, 101 Reasons To Vote For Hillary, said: “The late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher may have been called the “Iron Lady” but Hillary Clinton is the “new Iron Lady”. In our era of politics, in which spin seems to take precedence over substance, Hillary Clinton is an icon for what politics should be about – courage, spirit, and the determination to change things for the better.”
The Democratic Convention begins today. The lady has five days to make her case to both admirers and skeptics. One thing is absolutely certain: No one in more than 200 years of men has come to the race more dedicated or more prepared for the job at hand.
Of all the possible candidates for the office, Hillary Clinton brings to this campaign the lessons of a lifetime of preparation and dedication. President Obama laid out this quality, which more than any other has prepared her to take his place when she is sworn in on January 20, 2017.
Wilson Casey in his book,