WATCH LIVE: Democratic National Convention
Confronting a “moment of reckoning,” Hillary Clinton is casting herself as a unifier for divided times and a tested, steady hand to lead in a volatile world.
“We are clear-eyed about what our country is up against,” she said in excerpts released ahead of her speech Thursday accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. “But we are not afraid. We will rise to the challenge, just as we always have.”
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Clinton’s national convention address follows three nights of Democratic stars, including a past and present president, asserting she is ready for the White House. On the gathering’s final night, she was making that case for herself on the convention’s final night.
Acknowledging Americans’ anxieties, Clinton is vowing to create economic opportunities in inner cities and struggling small towns. She also says terror attacks around the world require “steady leadership” to defeat a determined enemy.
The first woman to lead a major U.S. political party toward the White House, Clinton will be greeted Thursday by a crowd of cheering delegates eager to see history made in the November election. But her real audience will be millions of voters who may welcome her experience but question her character.
A parade of military leaders, law enforcement officials and even Republicans took the stage ahead of Clinton to endorse her in the general election contest with Republican Donald Trump. American flags waved in the stands of the packed convention hall and the crowd broke into chants of “U-S-A!” drowning out scattered calls of “No more war.”
“This is the moment, this is the opportunity for our future,” said retired Marine Gen. John R. Allen, a former commander in Afghanistan. “We must seize this moment to elect Hillary Clinton as president of the United States of America.”
Clinton is locked in a tight general election contest with Trump, an unconventional candidate and political novice. Even as Clinton and her validators argue Trump is unqualified for the Oval Office, they recognize the businessman has a visceral connection with some voters in a way the Democratic nominee does not.
Campaigning in Iowa Thursday, Trump said there were “a lot of lies being told” at Clinton’s convention. In an earlier statement, he accused Democrats of living in a “fantasy world,” ignoring economic and security troubles as well as Clinton’s controversial email use at the State Department.
The FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private internet server didn’t result in criminal charges, but it did appear to deepen voters’ concerns with her honesty and trustworthiness. A separate pre-convention controversy over hacked Democratic Party emails showing favoritism for Clinton in the primary threatens to deepen the perception that Clinton prefers to play by her own rules.
Former Oklahoma Sen. Fred Harris said it was important for his party’s nominee to showcase the “original Hillary Clinton, before she became so guarded” when she takes the convention stage.
The Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, will attempt to do just that as she introduces her mother.
The week’s most powerful validation came Wednesday night from President Barack Obama, her victorious primary rival in 2008. Obama declared Clinton not only can defeat Trump’s “deeply pessimistic vision” but also realize the “promise of this great nation.”
Seeking to offset possible weariness with a politician who has been in the spotlight for decades, he said of Clinton: “She’s been there for us, even if we haven’t always noticed.”
A studious wonk who prefers policy discussions to soaring oratory, Clinton has acknowledged she struggles with the flourishes that seem to come naturally to Obama and her husband. She’ll lean heavily on her “stronger together” campaign theme, invoking her 1996 book “It Takes a Village,” her campaign said.
Indeed, the Democratic convention has been a visual ode those mantras: The first African-American president symbolically seeking to hand the weightiest baton in the free world to a woman. A parade of speakers – gay and straight, young and old, white, black and Hispanic – cast Trump as out-of-touch with a diverse and fast-changing nation.
Khizr Khan, an American Muslim whose son was killed in military service, emotionally implored voters to stop Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration.
“Donald Trump, you are asking Americans to trust you with their future,” Khan said. “Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.”
The program paid tribute to law enforcement officers killed on duty, including five who died in Dallas earlier this month in retaliation for officer-involved shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana.
“Violence is not the answer,” Dallas Sheriff Lupe Valdez said. “Yelling, screaming and calling each other names is not going to do it.”
On the convention’s closing night, Clinton sought to reach beyond the Democratic base, particularly to moderate Republicans unnerved by Trump.
Former Reagan administration official Doug Elmets announced he was casting his first vote for a Democrat in November, and urged other Republicans who “believe loyalty to our country is more important than loyalty to party” to do the same.
Following reports Russia hacked Democratic Party emails, Trump said he’d like to see Moscow find the thousands of emails Clinton deleted from the account she used as secretary of state. Hours later, Trump told Fox News he was being “sarcastic” although shortly after his remarks on Wednesday, he tweeted that Russia should share the emails with the FBI.
AP writers Catherine Lucey, Kathleen Hennessey and Lisa Lerer contributed to this report.
