-Officially nominates ex-VP to be Presidential nominee
Foreign Desk Report
NEW YORK: US Democrats officially nominated former Vice President Joe Biden to be their presidential nominee on Tuesday night, setting up an election battle against President Donald Trump, a Republican, in November.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Biden said in brief remarks made online following the vote from his home Wilmington, Delaware, after a touching video about his life and work. His wife, Jill Biden, and several grandchildren joined him for the moment.
The second night of the Democratic Party’s four-night national convention, at which the nomination was made through a virtual roll call votes, featured elder statesmen like former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, rising stars of the Democratic Party as well as prominent Republicans, who made the case that Biden would return integrity to the White House and normalcy to American lives.
Biden’s nomination was expected, and there was no drama at the convention, which was to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but the coronavirus pandemic prevented the traditional gathering of thousands of party supports.
Democratic activists and dignitaries had to cast their votes from locations across all 50 states and from the American territories and the District of Columbia (DC).
Among them, Pakistan-born Khizr Khan, the father of fallen Muslim-American Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who spoke out about President Trump’s immigration policies at the 2016 Democratic convention, represented Virginia and accused the president of standing up for “white supremacists” during the 2017 unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Former second lady Jill Biden, an educator, headlined the two-hour event from an empty classroom. Classrooms like the ones she stood in, empty now because of the pandemic, “will ring out with laughter and possibility” if her husband is elected, she said. She was one of a mix of speakers from across the country who extolled the nominee as a man of character and virtue while making an aggressive and unsubtle case that Trump’s presidency has been a failure.
“The burdens we carry are heavy and we need someone with strong shoulders,” Jill Biden said in an emotional speech about the tragedies in their lives that ended with a surprise appearance by the nominee.
“I know that if we entrust this nation to Joe, he will do for your family what he did for ours. Bring us together and make us whole.”
Democrats also used the night to elevate the issue of health care, both as an asset to Biden’s candidacy because of his current and previous commitment to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which provides health insurance coverage, and as an indictment against Trump, who has tried to gut the ACA.
