JULY 26, 2016
Photo: Getty
On Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention, the most popular athletic exercise appeared to be booing.
The boos started early and initially were aimed at a most unlikely target. On Monday morning, Bernie Sanders addressed his delegates for a pep talk and exhorted his troops with his themes about big banks and economic inequality. He then segued to talk about the danger of electing Donald Trump, and for that reason, we should all support Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. The boos from the Sanders supporters were deafening, and Sanders himself appeared to be taken aback. After all, this is a candidate who rarely (if ever) heard boos while on the campaign trail. And these are coming from his own people.
At that moment, it became clear that the fire that Sanders had lit under his supporters may now be raging out of control, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.
The boo-birds then flew to Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center for the opening of the Convention, where they immediately booed the opening prayer because the clergy mentioned Hillary Clinton. They booed the opening prayer?!?!?!
From then on, any time a speaker mentioned Clinton’s name, whether they were distinguished members of Congress or civil rights icons (Elijah Cummings, for God’s sake!), the speakers were roundly booed. And it seemed that there was nothing the rest of the convention could do about it.
That is, until the evening’s most unlikely hero — comic Sarah Silverman.
Silverman, one of Sanders’ most vocal supporters joined ex-funnyman Sen. Al Franken to speak, and when the many of the Sanders delegates began to boo again, Silverman turned to address the ringleaders of the booing, the Sanders supporters in the California delegation, and silenced them with three words:
“You’re being ridiculous.”
There. Somebody had to say it, and it came from a top Sanders supporter. The boil was finally lanced.
The convention soon moved toward prime time with Vice-Presidential runner-up Sen. Cory Booker, giving a barnburner of a speech, which kicked the proceedings into a temporarily-united high gear.
The evening’s first headliner, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the progressives’ first choice for the VP spot, ironically turned the boo-birds back on, since she has come out enthusiastically for Clinton and her speech, while filled with Sanders-like values and red meat digs against Donald Trump, caused the Sanders crowd to turn on her. “We trusted you,” went their refrain over and over. It was not one of Sen. Warren’s most memorable speeches, but, despite the catcalls, she did the job.
Sanders was supposed to follow Warren in the schedule, but the Clinton campaign, knowing that it was important for the nation to see that Sanders was on board with Hillary, moved him to the 10pm hour, when the nation’s broadcast networks would pick up coverage of the convention. The three-minute ovation that greeted Sanders upon his introduction clearly moved him, and even if his speech was more anti-Trump than pro-Clinton, his urging of his delegates and the nation to support the Clinton/Kaine ticket could not have pleased the Clinton campaign more.
If Warren and Sanders were supposed to be the headliners of the evening, the night’s best speaker by far turned out to be the woman sandwiched in between them — First Lady Michelle Obama. The First Lady delivered a speech that many prominent political observers ranked as one of the best political speeches in recent memory and made by far the most effective case for Clinton than Hillary has ever made for herself.
Part of the speech was an eloquent tirade against Trump without ever mentioning the Republican nominee’s name. She said the President must be
“…someone who understands that the issues the president faces are not black and white and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters”
Regarding Trump’s notoriously thin skin:
“When you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military in your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or a tendency to lash out. You need to be steady and measured and well informed.”
As to Trump’s divisive rhetoric, she condemned
“…the hateful language that we hear from public figures on TV. Our motto is, when they go low, we go high.”
And as to Trump’s slogan:
“Don’t let anyone tell you that this country isn’t great. This right now is the greatest country on earth.”
She spoke of her own experience:
“I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, intelligent, black young women — playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.”
As for Clinton:
