High-wattage stars on Democrats’ first night help smooth over some party chaos - By Dan Balz
PHILADELPHIA — This was supposed to be the feel-good convention, a celebration of unity and hopeful visions that would contrast with the displays of disunity at the Republican convention in Cleveland last week. But for much of Monday, that goal appeared in doubt, as Democrats turned on one another and demonstrated their own disunity that disrupted the script of Hillary Clinton’s campaign team.
It took first lady Michelle Obama to begin to turn the convention in a different direction. Doing for Clinton what Bill Clinton did for her husband, Obama made a passionate case for Clinton’s candidacy that the former secretary of state has not been able to make as effectively for herself. “In this election,” she said, “I’m with her.”
Obama’s speech brought the Democrats to life and set the stage for two more speakers — first Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and finally Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) — who tore into Donald Trump and championed Clinton as the person to deny the Republican nominee the White House.
For the final hour of the day, Obama, Sanders and Warren reminded Democrats of their common interests and their common goal of defeating Trump, rather than dwelling on the long and divisive nominating battle that exposed fault lines between the establishment and the grass roots.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-gathering-goes-off-its-feel-good-script/2016/07/25/e04247a4-527f-11e6-bbf5-957ad17b4385_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
