9:25 p.m. kj
Delegates and other attendees praised Clinton’s speech, with a couple saying that it reiterated the reason why she should actually be the nominee.
“She showed guts, she’s a team player,” said Joe Baldacci, a Maine delegate. “She exhibited all the reasons why she should be president.”
“It was super, just like she is,” said Kay Solberg, a Clinton delegate from South Dakota. “I’m still casting my (delegate) vote for her.”
But Portia White, an Obama supporter from Maryland said that Clinton’s speech was successful in bringing both factions of the party together.
“She showed us a good reason why we have to unite,” said the Transport Worker Union member. “It was great.”
9:24 p.m. gm
Rep. James Clyburn loved Clinton’s speech: “She asked the right questions and answered them the way they needed to be answered.”
9:07 p.m. jb
Clinton closed her speech with a rallying cry: “Let’s elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden!” Signs saying “Obama” and “Unity” shot up in the crowd.
9:07 p.m. kj
Crowd drowning out last words of her speech. Bill on his feet clapping.
9:07 p.m. jb
That was a really powerful invoking of Harriett Tubman. Many didn’t really seem to know where she was going at first, but they quickly got behind her analogy
9:06 p.m. jb
Clinton said she ran for president to “renew the promise of America,” so people could “afford gas and groceries and have a little left over each month.” She said she wanted to make college and health care affordable, stand up for women’s rights, gay rights and veterans’ rights. She said she ran to stand up for “all those who have been ignored by the Bush administration the last eight years.”
“Those are the reasons I ran for president and those are the reasons I support Barack Obama,” she said. “Were you in this campaign just for me? Or … were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?”
Progress will be impossible if “we don’t fight to put a Democrat back in the White House,” she said. We need a president that understands “the genius of America has also depended on the strength and vitality of the middle class.”
“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” she said.
“As I recall, we did it before with President Clinton and the Democrats,” she said. “We’ll do it again with President Obama and the Democrats.”
Clinton said she “couldn’t wait” to watch Barack Obama sign into law a health care plan “that covers every single American.” She called Michelle Obama a “terrific partner” for Barack and a “great first lady for America.” And she called vice presidential nominee Joe Biden “pragmatic” and “wise.”
Votes for Sen. John McCain mean more “sky-rocketing debt … more war and less diplomacy” and more government “where the privileged few come first and the rest come last.” She had the crowd shouting “No!” and booing when she spoke of McCain.
Clinton said it was fitting President Bush and McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities for the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
“These days, they are awfully hard to tell apart,” she said, drawing big laughter.
9:06 p.m. sk
We have decent view of the teleprompter over here. It’s rolling rather quickly.
9:05 p.m. sk
The “McCain the Same” signs are making an appearance again.
9:02 p.m. sk
Fifty people gathered around TV screen in Pepsi Center concourse. They are not getting in.
9:02 p.m.skUpset people in Pepsi Center got close but won’t see Hillary’s remarks in person.
9 p.m.kj
Bill Clinton doesn’t clap for himself, but everyone around him does.
8:584 p.m.kj
Every seat in the arena is taken at this moment.
8:54 p.m.kj
Bill Clinton is leaning over edge of his suite box, chin resting on his folded hands watching Hillary’s speech.
8:54 p.m.kj
After a closer look at the signs, there are two: Obama on one side and Unity on the other. Hillary on one side Unity on the other.
8:52 p.m.jb
“Barack Obama is my candidate and he must be our president,” she said. “Tonight, I ask you to remember what a presidential election is about.”
Clinton thanked the people she met on the campaign trail, talking of a single mother without health insurance who greeted her with Clinton’s name painted on her bald head.
“You taught me so much and you made me laugh and yes, you even made me cry,” she said. “To my supporters, to my champions, to my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you because you never gave in and you never gave up.”
8:51 p.m.
To my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits, Hillary says “thank you.”
8:48 p.m. jb People telling others in the audience to “Shhhh ” Volunteers passing out Unity/Obama blue signs.
8:48 p.m. jb “The time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose,” she said. “We are on the same team and one of us can afford to sit on the sidelines. This is a fight for the future and it’s a fight we must win together.”
Clinton said she hadn’t spend the last 30 years “in the trenches” advocating for health care and women’s rights to “see another Republican in the White House” squander “our promise.”
“No way. No how. No McCain,” she said.
8:45sk Hillary us introduced by her daughter. Sen. Hillary Clinton walked on stage to the screams of adoring delegates, the music of Big Head Todd and the Monsters and thousands of red, white and blue “Hillary” posters waving above the crowd.
When the whistles and cheers finally died down, Clinton said she was “so honored to be here tonight.” She called herself a “proud mother, a proud Democrat,.. a proud American, and a proud supporter of Barack Obama.
Some delegates waved signs saying “Unity.”
Rock music and images of Hillary Clinton on video revved up the crowd before Hillary Clinton’s appearance on stage. Above the delegates, on the second level of the Pepsi Center, former President Bill Clinton took a front row seat minutes before his wife spoke. Her daughter, Chelsea, did the voice-over for the video, talking about her mother’s the “18 million cracks” her mother put in the glass ceiling.
There are a couple of homemade signs in here as well. Playing “Blue Sky” from local band Big Head Todd.
Not a single Obama sign seen.
8:42 p.m. sk Hillary’s daughter, Chelsea, introduces her mother to the DNC crowd.
8:36 p.m. sk A Hillary Clinton video begins playing as a prelude to her appearance at the podium.
8:22 p.m. jb Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer takes the podium and says “Barack Obama is the change we need.”
7:54 p.m. jb Warner said his biggest criticism of President Bush is he “never tapped into our greatest resource: the character and resolve of the American people.” After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the president should have asked Americans to join him in a push to “get us off foreign oil, to stop funding the very terrorists who had just attacked us.
“Every American would have said, ‘How can I do my part?'” he said. “This administration failed to believe in what we can achieve as a nation when all of us work together.”
Warner said Sen. John McCain “promises more of the same.” But Barack Obama, he said, will lead the country down the “right path” on health care, education and energy policy.
“In six months, we will have an administration that actually believes in science,” he said, drawing laughter from the delegates.
7:50 p.m. jb Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, once counted among the 2008 presidential contenders, slammed GOP policies on energy, the environment and the economy as he took the stage tonight at the Democratic National Convention.
Warner, tonight’s keynote speaker, said “the most important contest of our generation has begun” – the race “for the future.”
“Two wars, a warming planet, an energy policy that says let’s borrow money from China to buy oil from countries that don’t like us. How many people look at these things and wonder what the future holds for them? Their children? Their country? How many?” he asked. “In George Bush and John McCain’s America, far too many.”
Democrats are hoping that putting Warner under the convention’s spotlight as a keynote speaker will help him win an open Senate seat in Virginia – a traditionally red state and one the Obama campaign would like to capture in November.
7:35 p.m. Self-described “Alabama grandmother” Lilly Ledbetter, who took on equal pay rights, told delegates that Barack Obama will keep up her fight.
Ledbetter went to court against a Goodyear tire plant she says paid her less than men doing the same job. The fight went all the way to the Supreme Court, where she lost.
Obama is “fighting to fix this terrible ruling, and as president, he has promised to appoint justices who will enforce laws that protect everyday people like me,” she said.
She followed U.S. Sen. Robert Casey, Jr.of Pennsylvania, who riled up the crowd for tonight’s showcase of prime-time speakers. He had delegates chanting “Four more months!” – as in how much longer Republicans will have the White House.
7:15 p.m. jbFormer Denver Mayor Federico Pena used his time on the national stage tonight to talk about America’s “addiction to oil.”
“For eight years now, President Bush and Dick Cheney have rubber-stamped an energy policy written by big oil companies and their lobbyists in Washington,” he said.
“This is America’s future: taking back our own energy destiny,” he said. “I ask each of you, as well as Americans across our great land, to believe that we can wean ourselves off foreign oil. We can create millions of jobs in green industries.”
7:10 p.m. skPena speaking on energy. “Come to Denver,” he says, touting the “new green economies” of Colorado and the West.
6:45 p.m. sk We took a break for America’s Town Hall on the economy. Scheduled to come up in the 7 p.m. hour: Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius; Federico Peña, former Secretary of Energy and former Mayor of Denver; U.S. Sen. Robert Casey, Jr. of Pennsylvania; the keynote speech from former Va. Gov. Mark Warner; and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.
6:15 p.m. kjIllinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel – though not as energized as Dennis Kucinich – lobbed a few lines of attack at the Bush administration.
“Bush inherited the strongest economy in history yet,” he said. “But I’m a little surprised because I thought that George Bush was good at inheriting things.”
He said there are three words to describe the Bush-McCain record when it comes to the economy, jobs, reform and the deficit.
“Mission not accomplished.”
5:44 p.m. kjSpeakers during the early evening session of tonight’s program stressed their working class roots as well as energy independence.
“My grandparents saved money in a coffee can to send my mother to college,” said Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar. “They did it and now their granddaughter is a U.S. senator. Let’s elect a president that looks out for the middle class.”
Washington senator Maria Cantwell urged energy independence as did Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.
Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said that Washington D.C. must “provide a realistic energy policy as well as healthcare for every working person.”
“Together we can move from a recession to resurgence,” he said.
5:42 p.m. jbU.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin took up the health care debate when it was her turn at the mike tonight.
“For eight long years we’ve had a president who was more concerned about the health of the insurance companies than the health of the American people,” she said.
Voting for Barack Obama will bring health care for all Americans, she said. “We can’t afford more of the same. Barack Obama is the change we need,” she said, repeating what was becoming a staple of so many convention speeches.
4:56 p.m. jbU.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio brought the crowd to its feet, delegates waving their arms in the air, as he accused the Bush administration of losing track of the economy while focusing on the war in Iraq.
“Wake up America. The insurance companies took over health care,” he said. “Wake up America. We went into Iraq for oil!”
Kucinich blamed the war in Iraq for “millions of Americans” losing their homes and jobs.
“Up with peace! Up with prosperity! Up with the Democratic Party! Up with Obama!,” he shouted, pumping his arms. “Wake up America!”
His speech was by far the liveliest of the evening so far, causing delegates to jump out of their seats and shout for the first time tonight.
4:49 p.m. jbCecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, voiced her support for Obama.
“Women deserve a president who understands their health care needs,” said Richards, daughter of the former Texas governor. “Barack Obama does and John McCain does not.”
She called Obama “the change America needs” and said McCain has voted against affordable family planning.
4:32 p.m. jbU.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont spoke out for “rural Americans” and against “big oil” this afternoon from the convention stage.
“Rural American can’t afford more of the same,” he said, saying Americans are suffering because of lost jobs. “Through it all, George Bush and Dick Cheney have sided with big business and big oil.”
He accused President Bush of not funding law enforcement properly and doing nothing to stave off high gas prices.
“Big oil knows John McCain is a sure bet to look out for them,” he said. “We know Barack Obama will look out for us.”
3:36 p.m. Those stepping up to the mike on the convention stage this afternoon weren’t wasting anytime bashing the GOP.
“Our eight-year national nightmare of mendacity, mediocrity and economic misery – with millions of Americans losing their jobs, their savings, their homes and their hopes – will soon end,” said Ted Sorenson, an advisor and speechwriter to President John F. Kennedy.
Sorenson compared JFK to Barack Obama. He said we need to “dispel eight years of pain and shame. Barack Obama is his name. Call roll!”
3:35 p.m. Just before Sorensen, Washington D.C. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton spoke: “The nation’s founders staked everything on creating a country where there would be no taxation without representation anywhere in America. In that tradition, Democrats proudly support the vote in Congress for the 600,000 citizens of our nation’s capital!”
3:34 p.m. Jennifer Brown: Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has called the second night of the Democratic National Convention to order as some of the roughly 5,000 delegates begin streaming into the Pepsi Center.
The band inside the convention kicked off the night with The Police’s “Every Breath You Take.” And the stage backdrop again glowed with red, white and blue stars and stripes.
Then the Rocky Mountain Children’s choir took the stage for the national anthem and Koby Langley, who received the Bronze Star for service in Iraq, led the pledge of allegiance.
Some of tonight’s main speeches will come from Sen. Hillary Clinton, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.
