Unity elusive as Democrats converge to anoint Clinton
Print Edition
DEMOCRATS who gleefully jeered Republican divisions last week awoke to a political mess of their own making yesterday as party unity behind Hillary Clinton proved much harder to secure.
Gathering for their convention in Philadelphia, Democrats struggled to shake lingering bitterness among supporters of defeated rival Bernie Sanders and dealt with the aftermath of a leadership shakeup.
The party announced yesterday it would kick off its four-day spectacle with speeches from some of its most popular figures. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a progressive favorite, would deliver the convention keynote. Sanders and first lady Michelle Obama will also take the stage.
The kickoff lineup had long been intended to appeal to the party’s restive liberal wing, but that task has become unexpectedly urgent. A trove of embarrassing leaked e-mails some said reveal an anti-Sanders bias at the supposedly neutral Democratic National Committee has ripped open barely-healed primary wound.
It was unclear if the resignation on Sunday of party chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz would be enough to unite the party behind Clinton.
How the e-mails were stolen hasn’t been confirmed, but the Clinton campaign pointed the finger at Russian hackers.
“There is a consensus among experts that it is indeed Russia that is behind this hack of the DNC,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told CNN yesterday, arguing Russia was trying to influence the outcome of the US election.
Republican presidential rival Donald Trump dismissed the suggestion in a tweet: “The joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC e-mails, which should never have been written (stupid), because Putin likes me.”
Republicans relished Democrats’ pre-convention tumult, just days after they bumped and bumbled through their convention, unsuccessfully trying to paper over their own division. Trump declared on Twitter: “The Dems Convention is cracking up.”
Resistance to Clinton was on display during a demonstration on Sunday as many thronged to a main thoroughfare and chanted, “Hell no, DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary.” Still many delegates, and Sanders himself, said they planned to fall in line, mindful of the Republican alternative.
DNC Vice Chair Donna Brazile, a veteran Democratic strategist who will lead the party on an interim basis after the convention, warned more leaked e-mails, and more apologies, could be coming.
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