Recap: Democratic National Convention Day 2

Clinton Brings Down the House:

There’s a reason former President Bill Clinton is still considered one of the — if not the — biggest star in the Democratic Party. Twenty years after he ran for president, Clinton showed during his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic National Convention that he still had it, rousing the crowd in what was the must-watch speech of the night. The address had numerous highlights, but one of the biggest ones was his takedown of the Republicans’ frequent lie that President Obama wants to get rid of the welfare-to-work requirement that Clinton enacted while he was in office. “When some Republican governors asked to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama administration said they would only do it if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20 percent. You hear that? More work. So the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform’s work requirement is just not true. But they keep running ads on it. As their campaign pollster said, ‘We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.’ Now that is true.” (Read more)

Warren’s Fiery Address: Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who is pitted against Scott Brown in what is one of the toughest election races in the country, delivered a stirring prime-time speech in which she extolled the virtues of the U.S. while flinging one attack after another at Mitt Romney. But perhaps the best part of the speech was when she debunked Romney’s oft-played claim that “corporations are people.” Said Warren: “No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people.” (Got that Mitt?) (Read more)

Fluke Attacks GOP: Sandra Fluke, the ex-Georgetown law student and women’s activist who was called a “slut” by radio personality Rush Limbaugh after she was blocked from testifying in front of Congress about birth control coverage, ripped Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan as she painted a dark picture for women if the GOP ticket wins in November. Indeed, that future, which in Fluke’s view would silence women while relinquishing control over their own bodies to government, looked very bleak. “In that America, your new president could be a man who stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs. Who won’t stand up to the slurs, or to any of the extreme, bigoted voices in his own party,” Fluke said. “It would be an America in which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms. An America in which states humiliate women by forcing us to endure invasive ultrasounds we don’t want and our doctors say we don’t need.” (Read more)

An Improvised Speech: Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri might not be a household name like, say, Bill Clinton, but after his speech Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention there’s no doubt he should be a presence for the Democrats on the national stage. Cleaver delivered a passionate, inspired and off-script address in which he energized the audience by extolling the virtues of “hope” — a major theme in President Obama’s 2008 campaign — and of being a Democrat. Deviating from his scripted speech, the Missouri congressman said: “Look, if being liberal and progressive means that I care for children and whether they go hungry, color me! Color me a Democrat! If being a Democrat means I’m concerned about our seniors in the sunset of their life, color me Democrat! Color me liberal! After all, we are the ones who protected Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, who fought for fair wages and who ended ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ We are Democrats! And don’t you ever forget it!” (Read more)

Venue Change for Obama Address: One important note for Thursday night at the convention: President Obama’s acceptance speech has been moved indoors, much to the chagrin of the thousands of people who will no longer be able to witness it in person. The event was relocated from spacious Bank of America Stadium to the much smaller and enclosed Time Warner Cable Arena because of forecasts of severe weather. (Read more)