Barack Obama told fellow Democrats in Chicago on Tuesday that “the torch has been passed” to Kamala Harris and that the United States was ready for her to become president.
Former President Obama, who was greeted with rapturous applause and cheers at the packed arena hosting the party’s nominating convention, said Vice President Harris would fight for Americans, and called her November poll rival Donald Trump “dangerous.”
“Yes she can,” Obama said of Harris, prompting the boisterous crowd to repeatedly chant the phrase, recalling Obama’s own “Yes we can” campaign slogan.
His turn amped up the already buoyant mood in Chicago where President Joe Biden delivered his own emotional speech late on Monday, less than a month after ending his reelection bid.
With the party united and Harris polling strongly, Democrats are showing that they believe they can defeat Trump.
The Republican nominee had seemed set to regain power in November’s election until Biden upended the race by dropping out and endorsing his vice president.
Comparisons are already being made by Democratic faithful to Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, during which a tidal wave of enthusiasm carried him to the White House.
Bullish delegates symbolically nominated Harris as their candidate in a boisterous roll call, following a paper exercise to confirm her as their standard-bearer earlier this month.
Harris, who was received rapturously in America’s third-largest city at her debut appearance before Biden spoke, traveled to Milwaukee on Tuesday for an event at the basketball arena where Trump attended the Republican National Convention just a month ago.
The choice of the 18,000-seat arena will rile Trump, who has been rattled that 59-year-old Harris, unlike Biden, is able to draw the kinds of crowds the Republican has long attracted to his events.
Addressing both crowds simultaneously highlighted that she had filled the DNC and RNC venues.
‘Outstanding President’
Trying to pry media attention away from the Democratic convention, Trump is holding events all week, and he spoke on Tuesday about what he says is Harris’ “anti-police” stance.
At an event in Howell, in the battleground state of Michigan, he attacked what he called “the Kamala crime wave.”
While allies have pleaded publicly for Trump to focus on policies and stop his barrage of personal insults against Harris, he has not stopped.
On Monday, the DNC floor belonged to Biden, who delivered a swan song after being forced to abandon his reelection bid amid deep concerns that, at 81, he is too old and frail to defeat Trump.
Biden has recast what might have been a humiliating moment into a narrative of sacrifice, passing on the torch to his younger protégé.
Gregory Walton, with AFP
