US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton cast herself as the steady leader at a “moment of reckoning” for the US, contrasting her character with what she described as a dangerous and volatile Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
In the biggest speech of her quarter century in politics, Clinton on Thursday accepted the Democratic presidential nomination for the Nov. 8 election with a promise to make the US a nation that works for everyone.
“We are clear-eyed about what our country is up against, but we are not afraid,” she said.
Photo: AFP
She presented a sharply more upbeat view of the nation than her rival Trump offered when Republicans nominated him last week and even turned one of former US president Ronald Reagan’s signature phrases against the New York real-estate developer.
“He’s taken the Republican Party a long way, from ‘Morning in America’ to Midnight in America,” Clinton said. “He wants to divide us — from the rest of the world and from each other.”
Clinton portrayed Trump as a threat to the nation, saying “a man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”
Vying to be the first woman elected US president, Clinton called her nomination “a milestone.”
“When any barrier falls in America, for anyone, it clears the way for everyone. That’s why when there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit,” the 68-year-old said.
She was due to hit the campaign trail yesterday with her running mate, US Senator Tim Kaine. They were to hold a rally in Philadelphia before setting off on a bus tour of Pennsylvania and Ohio, two states that could be pivotal.
Trump was campaigning in Colorado yesterday and is scheduled to visit Ohio next week.
While her speech was not as electrifying as those given by US President Barack Obama and some other prominent Democrats at the Philadelphia convention, Clinton was authoritative and self-assured in her pitch to the public.
She acknowledged some people still do not know her well.
“I get it that some people just don’t know what to make of me. So let me tell you. The family I’m from, well no one had their name on big buildings,” Clinton said in a reference to Trump, whose name is plastered across his properties.
She said her family built a better life and a better future for their children, using whatever tools they had and “whatever God gave them.”
The speech capped a four-day nominating convention that opened in discord after a leak of hacked Democratic National Committee e-mails showed party officials favored Clinton over primary rival US Senator Bernie Sanders.
Sanders supporters on Thursday wore fluorescent green T-shirts that said “Enough is Enough.”
Their occasional chants of protest were drowned out by Clinton supporters chanting: “Hillary.”
Clinton acknowledged Sanders and his supporters.
“I want you to know, I’ve heard you,” she said. “Your cause is our cause.”
She appealed to voters beyond the party, praising US Senator John McCain, a former Republican candidate for president, as a war hero and the military service of the son of Trump’s running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
Clinton said it would be her “primary mission” to create more opportunities and more good jobs with rising wages, and to confront stark choices in battling determined enemies and “threats and turbulence” around the world and at home.
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