Former United States President Bill Clinton on Wednesday night nominated US President Barack Obama for re-election as the Democratic National Convention’s candidate.
Clinton delivered a thumping endorsement Wednesday night of Obama, saying his policies were slowly healing the country and would lead to dramatic improvement in a second term, the Los Angeles Times reports.
“No president, not me or any of my predecessors, could have repaired all the damage in just four years,” Clinton said in a rapturously received speech that capped the second night of the Democratic National Convention.
“But conditions are improving, and if you’ll renew the president’s contract you will feel it,” he said, jabbing the air with a finger for emphasis. “You will feel it.”
“We certainly want those at the top to do well,” said New York Senator Charles E. Schumer. “But if you base your entire presidency and your entire economic platform on helping them do even better, you’re missing what makes the economy tick, because not everyone has been as fortunate as Mitt Romney. You cannot base your whole approach on a life experience as rarefied as his.”
One after another, women invoked Romney’s opposition to legal abortion and proposal to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood, saying it would turn back the clock on their rights.
“We’ve come so far, we’ve come so far, so why are we having to fight in 2012 against politicians who want to end access to birth control?” said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood. “It’s like we woke up in a bad episode of ‘Mad Men.’”
For his part, Romney lay low a second day, locked away in debate preparation at a retreat in Vermont. But he briefly surfaced in a Fox News interview, saying that granting Obama a second term would be “a big mistake.”
“I don’t think the American people want to see this president get another four years,” Romney said. “These last four years have not been good for the middle class in America…. This has not been a good time for the American people.”
Clinton’s appearance was the highlight of Wednesday night’s program, which did not get off before a few hitches. First, Obama’s acceptance speech was moved from the Carolina Panthers’ outdoor football stadium to the much-smaller convention arena because of concerns about the weather.
Then Democrats had to clean up a mess arising from Tuesday’s adoption of their platform, a broad statement of the party’s principles.
Opening the day’s session, Democratic leaders bulldozed through an amendment putting the word “God” back into the document and restating the party’s support for Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Both had been omitted from the original draft, and Republicans had seized on the absence to question both the Democrats’ godliness and their commitment to the key U.S. ally.
Obama, who landed Wednesday in the convention city, personally intervened to make the change, according to Democrats familiar with his concerns.
Obama, who landed Wednesday in the convention city, personally intervened to make the change, according to Democrats familiar with his concerns.
It took three tries, however, and a disputed decision by the convention chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, to determine that the change had the required support of two-thirds of the delegates.
To many listeners, the voice vote seemed at least evenly divided, and many on the floor expressed anger afterward.
Warren helped create the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in response to the financial near-meltdown of 2009 and was recruited by Democrats to run against GOP Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts.
She has struggled in that race, however, and Wednesday night’s appearance was an important opportunity to invigorate her campaign.
Warren and her fellow Democrats had some competition, though, from the National Football League, which opened its season with a matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants. NBC opted to carry the game rather than the convention.
But it was not just pro football that intruded on the Democratic gathering.
Party officials announced Wednesday that Obama’s acceptance speech, the Thursday night convention finale, would move from the outdoor Bank of America Stadium to the indoor arena that hosted the first two nights of the convention.
With intermittent rain drenching Charlotte since Sunday, party officials had been closely watching weather forecasts. On Tuesday, they insisted the event would go on “rain or shine.”
But the possibility of lightning forced them to reconsider “to ensure the safety and security of our delegates and convention guests,” Democratic Convention Committee Chief Executive Steve Kerrigan said in a statement Wednesday morning.
But the possibility of lightning forced them to reconsider “to ensure the safety and security of our delegates and convention guests,” Democratic Convention Committee Chief Executive Steve Kerrigan said in a statement Wednesday morning.
Republicans suggested Democrats moved the speech because they couldn’t fill the stadium. But the Obama campaign denied that, saying they had credentialed 65,000 people and had a waiting list of 19,000 more who had been turned away.
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