PHILADELPHIA, PA — Hillary Clinton made history Thursday night becoming the first woman to accept the nomination of a major political party seeking the presidency of the United States.
Clinton walked on stage on the last night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia to a thunderous ovation. She embraced her daughter Chelsea and began a speech that early focused on her November opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump.
“America is at a moment of reckoning, powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart. Just like it was with our founders there are no guarantees. It truly is up to us. We will decide if we can all work together so we can all rise together,” Clinton said.
The former secretary of state went right after Trump criticizing the outlook he passed along during last week’s Republican National Convention.
“Donald Trump wants to divide us from the rest of the world and each other. He has taken the Republican Party a long way from morning in America to midnight in America,” Clinton said.
Clinton also thanked her primary election rival Bernie Sanders, whose campaign gained 13 million votes, some of those in West Virginia where Sanders soundly defeated Clinton in the May Primary Election.
“Your campaign inspired millions of Americans especially the young people who threw their hearts and souls into our primaries,” she said. “To all of your supporters here and around the country, I’ve heard you–your cause is our cause–our country needs your ideas, energy and passion,” Clinton said.
Doris Irwin, a Sanders delegate from Mercer County, said she and those like her are taking their cues from Sanders who spoke to members of the West Virginia delegation on Thursday morning.
“In order to be with Bernie Sanders now and to continue, I feel that we need to support Hillary Clinton,” Irwin said. “She (Clinton) is a solid ‘B’ candidate and (Republican Presidential Nominee) Donald Trump is a big, fat zero.”
Irwin was one of 18 West Virginia delegates who cast ballots for Sanders during Tuesday’s Convention Roll Call.
Even though Sanders won the May 10 primary popular vote in the Mountain State with more than 50 percent of the vote, 19 West Virginia delegates, including the eight superdelegates, backed Clinton.
Coy Flowers, a Clinton delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Greenbrier County, predicted Clinton would find support among many of the Sanders voters in the Nov. 8 general election.
Many West Virginians, he claimed, are turned off by Trump.
“They are speechless when they listen to what Donald Trump says,” Flowers said. “A negative campaign, one that’s filled with hate, is never going to, in the end, prevail in West Virginia or in America.”
Both Irwin and Flowers were guests on Thursday’s MetroNews “Talkline” from Philadelphia.
Clinton’s speech Thursday night was interrupted several times with the chants of “Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!”
The speech included several “stump speech” themes including Clinton’s belief in climate change. She also said she would work with Sanders to provide free college tuition for the middle class.
Clinton and her running mate Tim Kaine will begin the fall campaign on a bus trip through the swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.