The Democratic Convention wrapped (and wrap-up) …. the race is officially on.
____________________________________
LAST NIGHT HILLARY CLINTON MADE HISTORY
– HRC
____________________________________
THE NARRATIVE — ROLE REVERSAL Politico: “For the first time, perhaps, since Vietnam, the Democratic Party is now the party of national security expertise-not just in its own rhetoric, but in the eyes of national-security specialists on both sides. One of the most striking facts about the election of 2016 is that a sizeable majority of Republican foreign-policy professionals appear to agree with Obama and Biden. They believe that Trump is a far greater danger to U.S. national security than Clinton is-and many of them say they will even vote for her.” WashPost “The country’s two major political parties … are speaking to America in voices that sound like a political and ideological role reversal. For Republicans, the country is a place of near-apocalyptic gloom whose best days are fast receding … The nation of the Democrats who met here this week to nominate former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is a vibrant and diverse place.”
Trump has abandoned the deep and pervasive optimism that has always energized the American nation,” David Brooks NYTs. “For decades the Republican Party has embraced America’s open, future-oriented nationalism. But when you nominate a Silvio Berlusconi you give up a piece of that. When you nominate a blood-and-soil nationalist you’re no longer speaking in the voice of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and every Republican nominee from Reagan to McCain to Romney. … It could be that in this moment of fear, cynicism, anxiety and extreme pessimism, many voters may have decided that civility is a surrender to a rigged system, that optimism is the opiate of the idiots … If that’s true it’s not just politics that has changed, but the country.”
____________________________________
GENERAL ALLEN BACKS CLINTON IN HAWKISH REBUKE OF TRUMP (he wasn’t screaming, that’s how he talks!) “Marching out on stage with dozens of military brass behind him, retired four-star Marine Gen. John Allen delivered a fiery speech Thursday night in support of Hillary Clinton, saying she is ‘exactly’ the commander in chief the country needs. “Allen, who commanded troops in Afghanistan and worked with Clinton when she was secretary of state, gave an impassioned defense of Clinton’s record and, without mentioning him by name, strongly criticized Trump’s remarks on national security.”
FALLEN MUSLIM SOLDIER’S DAD TO TRUMP: “Have you read the constitution?” and “You have sacrificed nothing.” Politico “The father of a deceased Muslim American Army captain hailed his son Thursday as a true military hero who gave up his dream to save the lives of his comrades but rebuked Donald Trump as not worthy commander in chief. “… In his address to the Democratic National Convention, Khan contrasted two vastly different presidential candidates – one who shares characteristics of his late son and one who is nothing like him.”
NOW THAT THE CONVENTIONS ARE DONE, CLINTON AND TRUMP WILL GET INTEL BRIEFINGS: WashPost “National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. indicated that Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton are eligible to receive intelligence briefings within days of the conclusion of the [DNC]. … Amid reports that some intelligence officials have deep reservations about sharing sensitive information with Trump, Clapper said that ‘it is not up to the administration and not up to me personally to decide on the suitability of presidential candidates. The American electorate is deciding on the suitability of the next commander in chief.'” According to Michael Morell, who led the CIA at various points in the Obama administration and has participated in briefing candidates. ‘There’s not a tremendous amount of extremely sensitive stuff here. These are analytic judgments.'”
____________________________________
“YES, WE STILL CAN” President Obama urged voters to transfer their trust in him to the Democrat he wants to succeed him: “Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me,” he said.
Politico: “President Obama sent a simple message Wednesday night: Yes, we still can. Obama’s convention speech in Philadelphia framed the 2016 election in a very Obama way: The audacity of hope over the politics of fear, optimism over darkness, solutions over slogans, togetherness over division, a supremely qualified public servant in Hillary Clinton over an amateur-hour con artist in Donald Trump. America, he declared, is already great, and Clinton will make it greater … ‘She’s made mistakes, just like I have, just like we all do,’ he said [of Clinton]. ‘That’s what happens when you try.'”
OBAMA on Trump: “He’s selling the American people short,” Obama said. “We are not a fragile or frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order.”
UNCLE JOE (BIDEN): “His speech included a litany of Biden-isms – ‘literally,’ ‘never, never, ever,’ ‘I mean this sincerely,’ ‘I’m deadly serious’ – that have become a kind of running soundtrack in the White House. He called Michelle Obama ‘kid’ and the president of the United States ‘Barack.’ … But he also brought tears to many eyes with his emotional reminiscence of his late son Beau, ‘an incredibly fine man,’ and with his recognition that so many families have endured heartbreak like his. “He delivered an efficiently brutal takedown of Trump as a cynical, empathy-deprived egomaniac who ‘doesn’t have a clue about the middle class,’ which is the ultimate insult in Bidenworld, and inspired chants of ‘Not a Clue’ from the delighted crowd. Biden also pointed out that the catchphrase Trump delivers with such glee, ‘You’re fired,’ is not the kind of thing that nice people enjoy saying. He scoffed that Trump is now running as a champion of ordinary people, prompting a classic Biden putdown: ‘That’s a bunch of malarkey!”
SPEECH OF A LIFETIME Daily Beast “Michelle Obama gave what almost surely had to be the greatest convention speech ever by a first lady. [making] about as strong a case for Clinton as anyone could possibly make. … Her smackdown of Trump was cleverly disguised as advice the Obamas have given their daughters about how to deal with surly classmates: “When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.” And then there was that line about waking up every morning “in a house built by slaves.” A stunning sentence in a convention speech.”
THE BERN CNN “Bernie Sanders on Monday led an orchestrated attempt by Democratic leaders to pull their party together.” WashPost “After a day full of tensions between Sanders supporters and the Democratic Party, Sarah Silverman (a Bernie supporter who endorsed Hillary) delivered one of the most memorable lines in her career. “Can I just say, to the Bernie-or-bust people: You’re being ridiculous.”
____________________________________
BLOOMBERG’S ENEMY-OF-MY-ENEMY ENDORSEMENT OF HILLARY
“I know a con when I see one. … We must unite around the candidate who can defeat a dangerous demagogue.”
– Michael Bloomberg on Trump … a fellow New York billionaire. And from that place, Bloomberg eviscerated Trump’s business record. “Trump says he wants to run the nation like he’s running his business,” he said, noting Trump’s history of bankruptcies and bilking contractors. “God help us!”
____________________________________
____________________________________
MOSCOW HACK ATTACK PART II WashPost Russian government hackers have apparently also breached the computers of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “The intrusion appeared to be carried out by the same Russian intelligence service that hacked the DNC earlier this year. Hackers working for Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, were traced to the DCCC intrusion, sources said. Also known as APT 28 or Fancy Bear, they are the group the FBI believes took a cache of DNC emails. The bureau is trying to determine whether those emails are the ones that appeared on the website of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks on Friday. “It’s definitely part of a much, much broader campaign that is yet to fully be publicly revealed,” a cybersecurity expert familiar with the matter.”
____________________________________
NEXT TRULY BIG MOMENT in the race is the first debate on Sept 28th.
____________________________________
NORTH CAROLINA VOTER ID LAW STRUCK DOWN WashPost ” A federal appeals court struck down North Carolina’s requirement that voters show identification before casting ballots and reinstated an additional week of early voting. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit was an overwhelming victory for civil rights groups and the Justice Department that argued the voting law was designed to dampen the growing political clout of African American voters, who participated in record numbers in elections in 2008 and 2012.”
