CNN contributors and a range of commentators offer their takes on the Democratic Party convention, Hillary Clinton’s speech and what to expect from the Democratic Party moving forward. The views expressed are the writers’ own.
Raul Reyes: Diversity a strength for Democrats
The organizers of the Democratic National Convention put together a program that, over four nights, deftly portrayed the diversity of our country. From the speakers to the delegates, the scene at the Wells Fargo Center was a coalition of diverse age groups, ethnicities and voices. While Donald Trump’s convention lineup reflected his erratic brand of populism, the gathering in Philadelphia looked like America.
Latinos certainly were well represented. On Monday night alone, Francisca and Karla Ortiz (an undocumented woman and her citizen daughter), New York State Sen. Adriano Espaillat, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, actress Eva Longoria, and DREAMer Astrid Silva all spoke proudly of the contributions of Latinos and immigrants. Their messages were important, as Clinton needs a strong turnout from Latino voters to help her win. Contrast this with the Republican convention, which devoted a great deal of time stoking fear and hostility toward undocumented immigrants; their most prominent Latino speaker, Kentucky State Sen. Ralph Alvarado, felt like a token nod to inclusion.
It is also to the Democrats’ credit that they chose to put people with disabilities front and center in Philadelphia. Not only did the Clinton campaign denounce Trump’s insulting comments about a disabled reporter, but they also had Anastasia Somoza speak for herself. “Hillary Clinton sees me,” she declared, in a message likely to resonate with the 53 million adults with disabilities and their families. Likewise, when Ryan Moore, who suffers from a rare form of dwarfism, praised Clinton in very personal terms, it served as a rebuke to Trump’s well-documented history of bullying.
It was especially effective for the Democrats to showcase both the Mothers of the Movement and the families of slain Dallas police officers. Meanwhile, in Cleveland there was nothing but ridicule for the idea that Black Lives Matter. Which approach speaks more to the best instincts of American voters?
The Democratic convention also benefited from having an array of surrogates on hand to speak to different sectors of the electorate. Unlike the Republican convention, which saw many of the biggest names in the Republican Party stay home, this week we saw a broad spectrum of speakers driving home the idea Clinton is the only candidate qualified for the job of president. Michael Bloomberg appealed to swing voters and independents, while Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders appealed to progressives. Vice President Joe Biden made the case for Clinton to working-class voters, and then President Obama appealed to those who voted for him twice to carry Clinton to the White House.
But the Democratic convention was also not a convention only for the base — vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine even made an appeal to disaffected Republicans. “If any of you are looking for that party of Lincoln,” he said, “we have a home for you right here in the Democratic Party.” It is this kind of strategy, one geared to looking beyond the audience in the convention hall, that may well push Clinton to victory.
Sure, both conventions had their memorable moments. Yet last week brought some strange scenes, from Melania Trump’s allegedly plagiarized speech to Ted Cruz being booed off the stage. In contrast, Philadelphia left us with a speech for the ages from Michelle Obama, an emotional address from Bill Clinton, and an iconic moment of our first African-American president embracing our potentially first female president.
And to top it off, Clinton reached all the way back to the Founding Fathers to remind her audience that we, as a nation, have always been “Stronger Together.” Masterful.
This convention succeeded because it epitomized one of our country’s core values: In our diversity, there is strength and unity.
Raul A. Reyes, an attorney and member of the USA Today board of contributors, writes frequently for CNN Opinion. Follow him on Twitter @RaulAReyes.
Brett Talley: Hillary Clinton didn’t make the sale
Hillary Clinton had two challenges to overcome in her much-anticipated acceptance speech. First, she was faced with an unprecedented popularity gap: The Democrats in the arena would have preferred any number of the speakers at the DNC as their nominee, whether Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton himself. And more fundamentally, she needed to overcome a divide in the Democratic Party that’s infected the central message of the convention.
This week, Barack Obama presented a picture of progress and prosperity, a veritable morning in America. At the same convention, speakers like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders spoke of a rigged system where the middle class and the poor are left behind, where jobs are hard to find and the American dream seems impossible to achieve. Hillary Clinton needed to explain how she would both protect President Obama’s legacy while fixing the problems that he was incapable of addressing.
She did neither. Instead, Hillary Clinton delivered stilted cliches that are unlikely to convince her detractors — on either side of the aisle.
The DNC presented a slate of speakers that put to shame all that the RNC could muster. But at the end of the day, Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. And she had to sell herself. That she could not do. Instead, she reminded America of her shortcomings, her lack of vision, and her inability to speak to the concerns of the people.
Commentators described Donald Trump’s speech as dark and pessimistic. But millions of voters heard realism, and a politician who finally gave voice to their everyday challenges. And that was what was missing from the most important speech of Hillary Clinton’s life.
Brett J. Talley is a lawyer, author, one-time writer for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and former speechwriter for Sen. Rob Portman. He is deputy solicitor general at the office of Alabama’s attorney general.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Clinton balance tender–and tough
The dilemmas and challenges women face in positions of power found their full expression on this last night of the Democratic National Convention. The balancing act between toughness and softness women with authority must pull off to be deemed appealing were writ large in portraits of Hillary Clinton as loving mother, kind grandmother — and future hawkish commander in chief.
The Democrats had two potentially conflicting agendas to advance. They needed to market Clinton as a strong leader to voters beyond the Democratic converted. And they also had to present Clinton, long plagued by “unlikeability,” in a more sympathetic light.
So speakers Thursday night emphasized Democrats’ commitment to military strength and national security — and Clinton delivered plenty of tough talk of her own. The campaign wisely brought out the big guns: retired four-star Marine Gen. John Allen, who put the weight of his male and military authority into his testament for Clinton. “We trust her judgment,” said Allen, speaking in tones that brooked no questioning. “With [Clinton] as our commander in chief … America will defeat ISIS and protect the homeland.”
And it’s not surprising that Clinton’s campaign called upon a woman to vouch for her softness. Clinton’s daughter Chelsea gave a touching testimonial to her mother as a woman who wanted her — wanted all children — to feel valued and loved. At this convention, humanizing Clinton meant presenting her presidential ambitions as extensions of her work as a mother, as well as continuations of the work in public service positions she has performed during her long career.
“Some people don’t know what to make of me,” said Clinton. And this neatly summed up the difficulty many still have in getting beyond traditional gender expectations, especially with regard to the office of the American president.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. Her latest book is “Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
Kayleigh McEnany: Not the vision America wants
The Democratic National Convention was short on policy and heavy on platitudes, short on change and heavy on continuity. Thursday evening, Hillary Clinton once again framed her candidacy as a continuation of the Obama presidency, a presidency during which ISIS terrorist attacks have occurred with terrifying frequency around the world and where the wages of the American people continue to lag.
The American people are suffering, but the DNC would have you believe that your suffering — whether with student loan debt, joblessness, violence in your community — is merely a “dark” thought falsely conceived of by the Republican Party.
The reality is that times are tough, and in an America where nearly three-quarters polled believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, people need a fresh vision.
Donald Trump offered the promise of change last Thursday night, not platitudes, and his honest assessment of what America faced garnered a post-convention bump: He was leading Clinton by 5 points in the last CNN poll. A CNN instant poll after his acceptance speech also showed 73% of viewers thought Trump’s vision would take us in the right direction.
Perhaps this is why Clinton mimicked his ideas on Thursday, advocating for standing up to China, saying no to unfair trade deals, bringing jobs to the United States, all while claiming Trump never proposed any of these solutions in his own speech. The contrast between the RNC and DNC was reality versus a false reality, authenticity versus inauthenticity, and truth versus naïveté
Kayleigh McEnany is a CNN commentator and supporter of Donald Trump. She graduated from Harvard Law School with a juris doctor. She received her Bachelor of Science in International Politics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and studied politics at Oxford University.
Peniel Joseph: Democrats offer bold vision
The big takeaway from the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia was Hillary Clinton’s political transformation, an evolution dictated as much by our tumultuous national political climate as it was by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Black Lives Matter protests.
In contrast to the angry, chaotic and apocalyptic feel of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last week, the DNC showcased an at times rambunctious, but almost always civil and inclusive, example of democracy in action.
The event featured history makers of varying degrees, most of whom were ignored by major media, including the fact that three black women (interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile, subbing for Debbie Wasserman Schultz; Rep. Marcia Fudge as convention chairwoman; and Leah Daughtry as convention CEO) for the first time led a major party convention.
Michelle Obama, the nation’s first black first lady delivered a powerful speech that touched upon the nation’s original sin of racial slavery and set the tone for some of the convention’s best speeches. President Barack Obama delivered a brilliantly modulated speech on Wednesday that served as a valediction of his presidency, a repudiation of Trumpism, and rousing endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Obama’s optimistic speech touched on the promise of American democracy in a way that reminded the nation why he earned the two largest popular vote totals in history.
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, leader of North Carolina’s “Moral Mondays” movement for voting rights and racial and economic justice, urged Democrats to act as the “moral defibrillators” capable of resuscitating the beating heart of the nation’s democracy.
And on Thursday night, Hillary Clinton’s panoramic speech acknowledged the complex reality of the Democratic Party and the nation. The party’s all white ticket belies its increasing reliance on black and Latino voters in national elections. The robust slate of people of color, both politicians and ordinary citizens, attested to these facts.
Movements for racial, economic, gender and sexuality justice along with Trumpism’s dystopian view of the nation as a “divided crime scene” have overwhelmed the history making nature of Clinton’s candidacy and rise to becoming the first female major party candidate.
Clinton’s speech offered a New Deal for the nation in perhaps the most progressive vision of the nation spelled out by a Democrat since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship, equal pay for women, paid family leave, debt free college and criminal justice reform — it was all there. Even Black Lives Matter received a positive, if slightly elliptical shout-out.
Ultimately, Clinton’s speech — and the entire week — showcased the maturity and new demographic makeup of a Democratic Party publicly willing to embrace the challenges and complexities of race, class, gender, religion and gun violence. In doing so, Democrats offered a boldly nuanced vision that sees diversity of beliefs, cultures, and circumstances not as a burden to be dismissed or a nuisance to be ignored, but an opportunity to make the party and the nation stronger.
Peniel Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Political Values and Ethics and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor of history. He is the author of several books, most recently “Stokely: A Life.”
Rebecca Berg: Can Clinton define Trump?
One of the prevailing questions leading into the Democratic convention was whether Hillary Clinton would be able to unite her party, and especially Bernie Sanders supporters, around her candidacy. Ultimately, Clinton and her allies seemed to take this for granted. The focus instead was on drawing a stark contrast with Donald Trump and charting a safe harbor for Independents and Republicans wary of him to back Clinton.
Notably, the Democratic message sought to transcend traditional party bashing. In his speech, President Barack Obama noted that Trump’s convention “wasn’t particularly Republican, and it sure wasn’t conservative.” Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, and Doug Elmets, a Republican and former aide in the Reagan White House, both spoke on Clinton’s behalf. The underlying theme is one Clinton will return to on the campaign trail through November: that Trump is dangerous and fundamentally unfit for the presidency.
There was not, however, a concerted effort at the convention to reintroduce or redefine Clinton. This reflects one of her challenges moving forward: Most Americans have already formed strong opinions about her during her decades in public life. The key question now will be whether Clinton can define Trump as an unacceptable choice.
Rebecca Berg is a national politics reporter for Real Clear Politics.
Julian Zelizer: A watershed for America
Convention speeches are not game-changers in campaigns nor they are not turning points, and Hillary Clinton’s address won’t be an exception. In an age of a polarized electorate and a fragmented and partisan media it is difficult for any single moment in a campaign to fundamentally “transform” the fortunes of a candidate. These kinds of speeches serve a different purpose. Their goal is to weave together the major themes that will frame the general election — about the candidate and about the contest itself. This is the longest block of time that a candidate will receive without interruption.
Though lacking the oratorical flair of President Barack Obama’s speech, Clinton fulfilled her goals. She presented herself as the candidate with experience, the candidate with an even temper (“steady leadership”) and pragmatic understanding of how to achieve real change, and a historic candidate who will break the barriers that hold any social group back from achieving their goals. Her opponent, according to the speech, divides people, doesn’t tell the truth, and lacks the basic knowledge and temperament needed to be in the White House (“a man you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons”).
Just as important, she used the speech to define what she believes this election to be about: a struggle between one campaign that is about division, hatred, and anger versus one that is about unity, love and compromise. Her speech is a rejection of the kind of vitriol that Donald Trump wants to offer the nation, and world.
The speech provided voters the best look thus far of what she stands for, what the election is about, and it will offer a foundation for the campaign that we will see in the coming months. In all of these respects, it is a success.
Still. the speech was a game-changer, not for the Clinton campaign, but for American history. It is a “milestone,” as Clinton said, to have the first female nominee for a major party standing before the delegates of her party and delivering an acceptance speech. This is an event that Democrats and Republicans should celebrate as a watershed in the nation’s development.
Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and a New America fellow. He is the author of “Jimmy Carter” and “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society.”