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, reports CNN.
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.
Fact-checking night 1 of the Democratic National Convention
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 emphasised – in personal and historical 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 clamouring 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 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 campaign.
