PHILADELPHIA – President Barack Obama painted an optimistic picture of America under his leadership in his keynote speech on Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention, which came after a week where Donald Trump and most speakers at Republican National Convention did just the opposite.
“It’s been you who’ve fueled my dogged faith in our future,” Obama said to the delegates and television viewers all across the country. “Even when the odds are great; even when the road is long. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope.”
That core message of hope, optimism and faith — faith in America, faith in democracy and faith in the leadership of the Democratic Party — has emerged as a theme throughout the convention so far as Hillary Clinton seeks to keep the White House in Democratic hands.
South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison touched on that theme when he offered a message to Daily Gamecock readers from the floor of the convention earlier in the week.
“It’s important to keep the faith,” he said, referencing political disillusionment among younger voters.
It was another big day Wednesday for South Carolina at the convention as two survivors of the Emanuel AME shooting in Charleston addressed the delegates.
Actress Angela Bassett appeared before Felicia Sanders and Polly Sheppard, and said the names of each one of the Emanuel Nine as she recounted last summer’s events.
“I visited Charleston this year,” Bassett said. “And I can tell you that that city’s soul is on fire. That soul burns with resilience. It fuels their resistance. It brought down the Confederate flag!” Cheers erupted in the Wells Fargo Center at the mention of the historic moment last summer in Columbia.
Sanders and Sheppard took the stage to speak about the need for gun control, their Christian faith and its role in overcoming hatred.
“Hate destroys those who harbor it," Sanders said. "I refuse to let hate destroy me.”
Eyes watered all around the arena as the two women spoke. The South Carolina delegation held posters remembering the Emanuel Nine, adorned with the same design by Gil Shuler of nine doves in a Palmetto tree that the Gamecock football team wore on their helmets this past season.
“As Scripture says, love never fails,” Sheppard said. “So I choose love. And in this election, I choose Hillary Clinton.” All throughout the convention, delegates have been waving signs reading, “Love trumps hate.”
South Carolina delegates Christale Spain, Marguerite Willis and state Sen. Margie Bright Matthews appeared in a large photo above the fold on the front page of Wednesday’s New York Times, with Willis and Bright Matthews holding a sign that read “Girl Power” as they watched Clinton make history Tuesday night as the first female presidential nominee.
Don Fowler, former Democratic National Committee chairman and USC political science professor, addressed the delegation at breakfast on Wednesday.
Fowler, who taught Politics and the Mass Media at USC last semester, gave the delegates an inside scoop about this election cycle.
“The media people are as puzzled about this as we are,” he said.
Despite struggling to cover a dizzying array of angles emerging from this convention, including Donald Trump’s apparent suggestion Wednesday that Russia should publish information it might have stolen from Clinton, the media was out in force in downtown Philadelphia on Wednesday covering the frenzied activity of delegates, staffers, volunteers, politicians and protestors.
Frank Romeo, a Philly native on his lunch break, took it all in while chowing down on a corned beef sandwich at Hatville Deli inside Reading Terminal Market.
“We’ve had papal visits, Phillies parades, Eagles parades, but I’ve never seen downtown so electric,” Romeo said. He also praised the Philadelphia police for keeping control of protests, acting with restraint and powering through an oppressive heat wave.
“The police have been doing a great job. Big ups to the Philly police,” Romeo said.
Police were certainly kept busy Wednesday, especially due to a large rally near City Hall held by supporters of the “Bernie or bust” movement still devoted to Bernie Sanders. Protestors chanted, “Hell no DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary,” as Sanders delegates took the stage.
“The media rigged this election,” Texas delegate Justin Snider said as the crowd cheered.
Later on inside the Wells Fargo Center, Montana’s first-ever transgender delegate Anita Green had a message for Sanders supporters and the LGBT community.
“I am asking the queer community to rally together in solidarity behind Hillary Clinton,” Green said. “It is Clinton, not Trump, who will help to advance the queer movement.”
Green acknowledged Clinton has some flaws in the eyes of progressives, but still urged Bernie fans to back the former secretary of state.
“I know Clinton publicly opposed same-sex marriage for over two decades,” she said. “But as a former 'Bernie or buster,' I am here to tell you that I believe people can change their minds and if you are a Bernie or buster, I hope you will heed my words.”
While many of the hard-core Sanders delegates took their protests outside, business continued at the convention.
At the black caucus, former Attorney General Eric Holder urged delegates to support the Black Lives Matter movement and criminal justice reform.
“Folks ask me how I took that abuse from Congress,” Holder said as he referenced being held in contempt by the institution. “I grew up black in America.”
The youth council convened as staffers and volunteers passed out “millennials for Hillary” buttons.
Sarah Audelo, millennial vote director for the Clinton campaign, acknowledged that many young voters who backed Sanders are not yet fully on board with Hillary.
“Some people are there, some people are not there,” Audelo said.
The council’s keynote speaker was convention fixture New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who addressed a South Carolina delegation breakfast and the convention as a whole from the stage earlier in the week.
Booker also urged young delegates and activists to work for criminal justice reform. “Nobody stops and frisks people on the way home from a frat party,” he said.
Booker closed by returning to what appears to be the overarching message of the week here in Philadelphia — optimism and hope. He urged young delegates to “stay faithful” in the promise of America.
In the prime time program, newly official vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine kept the theme going.
“Hillary Clinton is ‘listo,'” the Virginia senator said, slipping briefly into his fluent Spanish. “She is 'ready' because of her faith.”
Kaine spoke about the values he learned as a Catholic missionary in Honduras.
“Faith, family and work,” he said. The professional politician, recently derided as boring, decided to bust out a Donald Trump impression Wednesday night as well.
Despite speeches from Kaine and Vice President Joe Biden, the real star of the night was President Obama.
Obama offered a lengthy case for why voters should elect Clinton as his successor, echoing Teddy Roosevelt. “You’ve got to get ‘in the arena’ with her, because democracy isn’t a spectator sport.”
If the last part sounds familiar as well, it’s because he borrowed that phrase from Bernie Sanders, who used it when he campaigned at the Russell House back in February.
But Obama had some stirring rhetoric of his own as well.
“What makes us American, what makes us patriots, is what’s in here,” Obama said, pointing to his heart. “That’s what matters. And that’s why we can take the food and music and holidays and styles of other countries, and blend it into something uniquely our own.”
Perhaps that was a reference to recent comments made about immigrants by former Gamecock football head coach Lou Holtz that made headlines. "I don't want to speak your language," Holtz said last week in Cleveland. "I don't want to celebrate your holidays ... I sure as hell don't want to cheer for your soccer team!" Holtz apologized for his comments earlier this week and said they were meant in jest.
Obama closed his convention speech Wednesday with his signature theme — hope.
“This year, in this election, I’m asking you to join me to reject cynicism, and reject fear and to summon what is best in us,” the president said Wednesday. “Elect Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States, and show the world we still believe in the promise of this great nation.”