Kamala Harris officially accepts vice presidential nomination as Barack Obama blasts President Trump during his DNC speech, Harris the first Black woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America and Obama a former president and the nation's first Black president....Moderated by actress Kerry Washington, other day three DNC convention speakers included Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest
WILMINGTON, Delaware- U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris officially accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president Wednesday night following a star studded cast of convention speakers, Harris making history as the first Black woman to run on a major party presidential ticket in America.
It was likely the most diverse night of the convention.
The junior senator from Illinois gave her 18 min. acceptance speech live from Wilmington, Delaware, Joe Biden's hometown, Biden the Democratic nominee for president and a former president who served under former president Barack Obama, the country's first Black president.
Her speech followed Obama's comments, a cleverly crafted intellectual beat down of President Trump by the two of them that shows their political savvy, if not that of the Democratic Party. (Editor's note: Read further down in the article as to Obama's DNC address on day three of the DNC).
"Donald Trump's failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihood," said Harris, a comment that transcends the president's mishandling of the coronavirus, she said, the U.S. leading the world with more than 170,000 COVID-19 deaths.
Other prominent Democrats who spoke included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Mariska Hargitay, and Ruth Glenn, the president and chief executive of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
A native of Oakland and a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general elected to the Senate in 2016, Harris is the fourth woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America behind vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton also among the convention speakers last night.
"I accept the nomination for vice president [of the United States of America]," Harris said.
She talked on a gambit of issues, including family, community, foreign and domestic policy, institutional racism and sexism, voting and Civil Rights, and what she says are the failed policies of the Trump administration.
She said that, like Biden, she sees America as "a vision of our nation as a beloved community where all are welcome, no matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we love."
The federal lawmaker and vice presidential wannabe who lost a bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president and now joins Biden on his presidential ticket, complimented Biden, then a U.S. senator, for introducing legislation that brought about the Violence Against Women Act.
And she said that though 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of women in America winning the right to vote, it took decades after the ratification of the 19th Amendment for Black women to get the right to vote previously afforded to White women.
Like the Republican National Convention, which begins next week, the Democratic National Committee this year, and for the first time ever, is, for the most part, remotely holding their convention due to the coronavirus pandemic.
A tribute to the women's rights movement, and women's suffrage, day three of the four day convention in Milwaukee highlighted immigration reform, the Black Lives Matter Movement, climate change, gun violence, education, and structural racism.
Also front and center were universal healthcare, a subject that has been common place to all three days of the convention, and domestic violence against women, which convention speaker Ruth Glenn, the president and chief executive of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence who spoke, said has increased during the pandemic.
The Latina community was addressed as was DACA, one family giving a heart wrenching expose' on losing its matriarch to deportation as video clips of President Donald Trump telling immigrants to get out of the country were intermittently streamlined, and televised.
Biden, whom Democrats nominated for president on day two of the convention this week, greeted his running-mate before the cameras after she spoke live on Wednesday from his hometown.
Their respective spouses also joined them, Biden's wife and possibly the nation's next first lady, Dr. Jill Biden, who spoke on night two of the convention, and Harris' Jewish husband, Douglas Emhoff, a millionaire entertainment lawyer whom she married in 2014.
Obama delivered a brilliant DNS speech, pundits said, a speech commensurate to a presidential address, and, in particular, on the urgency of Democrats working together to get President Trump out of the White House.
A trained constitutional lawyer, Obama spoke from Philadelphia, and he blasted Trump, the first time in decades a former president has politically attacked a sitting president with such authority, and conviction.
In short, the former president called President Trump foolish, petty, and ineffective, and a detriment to the American people.
But he said the presidency is a constitutional role that is larger than any one person, and that President Trump just simply does not measure up to the job, a scathing rebuke of the Trump presidency that, no doubt, puts Republicans on notice.
"Our president should be the custodian of out Democracy," said Obama, a former junior senator out of Illinois elected president in 2008, and again in 2012.
Obama said that Trump has treated the presidency as if it is "one more reality show," Trump a real estate mogul and television reality show host turned president.
To the contrary, he described Harris, who actively campaigned across the country for his reelection bid in 2012, "a friend."
Harris called out the names of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor during her acceptance speech, both of them Black victims of police murder this year, and the impetus for the new Civil Rights Movement that has brought protesters and tapped the conscience of young activists demanding systemic changes in policing and the nation's criminal justice system.
"And let's be clear, there's no vaccine for racism," Sen. Harris said.
She discussed her prior working relationship with Biden's now deceased son, Beau Biden, the younger Biden Delaware's attorney general at the time, and Harris, California's attorney general, Harris saying that together they tackled greedy banks and mortgage companies, and foreclosure fraud.
She branded the president incompetent, a theme that seems to dominate the many convention speeches thus far.
Harris said that Trump is too controversial, and that he is mean.
"The constant chaos leaves us adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid," Harris said.
Polls show Biden with at least a 10 point lead over the embattled president.
The daughter of Indian and Jamaica immigrants who, herself, sought the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, Harris, 55, was selected among more than 20 women aspiring to become vice president that caught the former vice president's eye.
Biden promised to choose a female running-mate during the 11th Democratic Debate on March 15 in Washington, D.C as pressure subsequently mounted by Black leaders and Democrats, and even some mainstream media, for that woman to be a woman of color, preferably a Black woman.
Other women purportedly on Biden's super short list for vice president, most of them Black women, were U.S. Sen Tammy Duckworth, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Rep. Val Demings of Florida, former national security adviser Susan Rice, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep Karen Bass of California.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
Comments