California Sen. Kamala Harris made American political history Wednesday night when she became the first woman of color to be placed on a major party’s presidential ticket.
“We’re at an inflection point,” Harris said during Wednesday night’s session of the carefully scripted Democratic National Convention. “The constant chaos leaves adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid. The callousness makes us feel alone. It’s a lot.
“And here’s the thing: We can do better and deserve so much more. We must elect a president who will bring something different, something better, and do the important work. A president who will bring all of us together — Black, white, Latino, Asian, indigenous — to achieve the future we collectively want. We must elect Joe Biden.”
»MORE: Read Kamala Harris’ full DNC 2020 speech
Biden was officially chosen as the party’s 2020 White House standard bearer on Tuesday night. The mostly pre-taped, all-virtual Democratic convention concludes Thursday night with Biden’s acceptance speech in a mostly empty convention hall near his Delaware home.
Former President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former First Lady, Secretary of State and Senator Hillary Clinton also spoke Wednesday night.
“I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president,” Obama said in one of the convention’s few live speeches, this one from Philadelphia. “I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.
“But he never did,” Obama said. “He’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.
“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t.”
»MORE: Read Barack Obama’s DNC 2020 remarks
“For four years, people have said to me, ‘I didn’t realize how dangerous he was,; I wish I could go back and do it over; Or worst, I should have voted,‘ ” Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential race to Trump, said. “Well, this can’t be another woulda-coulda-shoulda election. If you vote by mail, request your ballot now, and send it back as soon as you can. If you vote in person, do it early. Bring a friend and wear a mask. Become a poll worker. Most of all, no matter what, vote. Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are.”
Harris, Clinton and Pelosi appeared at the DNC one day after the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, and one day after Trump pardoned Susan B. Anthony, the legendary women’s voting rights activist who was found guilty by an all-male jury of illegally voting in the 1872 presidential election. Anthony’s 200th birthday was celebrated earlier this year on Feb. 15.
The pandemic has forced Biden’s team to abandon the traditional convention format in favor of an all-virtual affair that has eliminated much of the pomp and circumstance that typically defines political conventions. It’s also produced opportunities to create new traditions, including a roll call vote for Biden’s formal nomination featuring a video montage of activists in every state in the nation.
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Wednesday’s speech was Clinton’s sixth to the Democratic National Convention. In 1992 her husband, longtime Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, was the nominee, but she didn’t speak at that year’s convention.
Her first DNC speech was in 1996, when the then-first lady faced criticism about the Whitewater scandal and for having too much influence on administration policy.
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