CNN
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Democrats opened their convention in Chicago on Monday by sending off Joe Biden. And then the president closed the night – which ran significantly behind schedule – with a hand-off to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Biden said choosing Harris as his running mate in 2020 was “the best decision I made my whole career.”
“She’ll be a president our children can look up to. She’d be a president respected by world leaders, because she already is. She’d be a president we can all be proud of. And she’d be a historic president who puts her stamp on America’s future,” Biden said.
His passing of the torch demonstrated the shift for Democrats. The party, which was deeply fractured just last month as pressure mounted on Biden to exit the race, was united Monday night behind Harris – and against her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.
Democrats attacked the GOP nominee over abortion rights. They highlighted the former president’s legal troubles and questioned his morality. And they argued that his policy beliefs would benefit the wealthy while Harris’ would better serve working people.
“A vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and our children, and our prayers are stronger when we pray together,” said Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is also a pastor at the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.
The party also emphasized – in personal and historic terms – the potential for Harris to become the first woman to win the presidency.
Hillary Clinton said that though she’d fallen short eight years ago, she wanted her grandchildren and their grandchildren to know she’d been there for Harris when the “glass ceiling” finally shatters.
“This is when we break through,” she said. “The future is here.”
Here are six takeaways from the first night of the Democratic National Convention:
Biden takes a bow
A month ago, they were clamoring for him to go. But on Monday night, Democrats in Chicago were singing – and chanting – a different tune. One of gratitude for his decades of public service, personal kindness and, less comfortably, for passing the baton to Harris.
Biden in his own speech, which only began after a four-minute ovation, delivered a spirited message of support for Harris and running mate Walz, before dedicating his remarks to familiar yet scathing criticism of Trump and a detailed recollection of his administration’s legislative achievements.
He began by recalling the angst that gripped the country in 2020, as he campaigned during a global pandemic and national racial reckoning.
He then began a valedictory wave, weaving in jabs at Trump and, in true Biden fashion, an assortment of aphorisms about the value of good government and the scourge of greed, guns, disease and authoritarianism.
“Because of you – and I’m not exaggerating – because of you, we’ve had one of the most extraordinary four years of progress ever, period,” Biden said. “When I say we, I mean Kamala and me.”
And when the president flagged, or stumbled over a phrase, the audience willed him through. The anxiety and gripes of the spring and early summer, in the wake of his ultimately campaign-dooming debate with Trump, were gone. Democrats once again had a chance to enjoy Joe being Joe.
“I love my job,” Biden said at one point, “but I love my country more.” It was the closest he came to explaining why he chose, in the end, to give up his own campaign.
Clinton: ‘The future is here’
Eight years after Clinton made history as the first woman to be a major party’s presidential nominee, she was back at the Democratic National Convention, urging Americans to finally break the “glass ceiling.”
She said Americans who backed her in 2016 had “voted for a future where there are no ceilings on our dreams.”
And after her loss, “we refused to give up on America. Millions marched. Many ran for office. We kept our eyes on the future,” Clinton said. “Well, my friends, the future is here.”
“I wish my mother and Kamala’s mother could see us. They would say, ‘Keep going,’” Clinton said. She invoked Shirley Chisholm, the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman nominated for vice president. “Shirley and Geri would say, ‘Keep going,’” Clinton said, as the crowd echoed her with chants of “Keep going!”
She also connected her own life – and her loss, and legacy – with Harris’ hopes in November.
Clinton said she’d put many cracks in the “highest, hardest glass ceiling,” and now Harris is “so close to breaking through once and for all.”
“When a barrier falls for one of us, it falls – it falls and clears the way for all of us,” Clinton said. “I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to know I was here at this moment, that we were here, and that we were with Kamala Harris every step of the way. This is our time, America. This is when we stand up. This is when we break through. The future is here. It’s in our grasp. Let’s go win it.”
