With the sound of popping balloons still fresh in her ears, Hillary Clinton hit the road on Friday for a bus tour of America’s rust belt, marking the start of a battle for the soul of the nation, that threatens to be every bit as historic as becoming the Democratic party’s first female nominee.
It was, said Clinton in her acceptance speech the night before, a “moment of reckoning” for the country and the real battle lay not in the convention centre in Philadelphia, but on the backroads of western Pennsylvania and Ohio where Donald Trump wishes to pull off a stunning upset.
With barely a hundred days to go before Americans go to the polls, she warned that “powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart, bonds of trust and respect are fraying”. She sets out on the campaign trail seeking to stitch back together the Democratic party’s reputation for standing up for the country’s working class.
Trump, whose own convention in Cleveland last week pushed him ahead in the polls, said the Democratic party’s attempt to reverse that with its four-day convention left him wanting to “hit a couple of those speakers so hard … their heads would spin”.
The mood was very different in Philadelphia, where still glowing from Clinton’s historic ascent on Thursday night, thousands of people who came to see the Democratic ticket at a gymnasium at Temple University’s McGonigle Hall roared with excitement when the candidate walked on to the stage with former president Bill Clinton, running mate Tim Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton.
“I don’t know about you but I stayed up really late last night,” Hillary Clinton said drawing loud laughs and cheers. “It was just hard to go to sleep!”
Reminding the crowd that after Saturday “we have 100 days to make our case to America”, Clinton and Kaine sounded a note of optimism and enthusiasm as they enter the frenetic final months of what has been for Clinton an 18-month campaign.
“I’m not satisfied with the status quo,” Clinton said. “I’m not telling you everything is peachy keen. I’m telling you we’ve made progress but we have work to do.”
She also referenced the history of the moment to the delight of the rambunctious crowd.
“After the end of our convention, I knew that every parent in this country could look at their son or their daughter and now say the very same thing: ‘You too could be president of the United States.”
Among the 5,000 cheering were the Pauline sisters, Linda, Rose Lee and Anna, each decked out in Hillary Clinton regalia.
“Oh we’re feeling wonderful!” Linda said. The three gathered at Rose Lee’s house in Philadelphia on Thursday night to watch Clinton accept the nomination.
“You know when it really hit me?” said Rose Lee Pauline. “When President Barack Obama said that no one has ever been more qualified to be president, not him, not Bill, not anyone,” Linda said. “I have been waiting a long time to hear that – since 2006 when Hillary was just thinking of running.”
She added: “Girls today don’t understand. They think that a woman can be president … but I guess that’s thanks to my generation. We fought to make it so easy to them.”
After the rally in Philadelphia, Clinton and Kaine will take their economic vision to a factory in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, a farmer’s market in Harrisburg, and a high school in Youngstown, according to a campaign aide.
On Thursday night, Clinton’s acceptance speech, when it finally came, had rhetorical punch despite a week of buildup, and almost a decade of rehearsal. “So it is with humility, determination and boundless confidence in America’s promise that I accept your nomination for president of the United States,” said the first American to stand on the brink of being called Madam President.
But after the history, the speech needed to start building a position where she can demonstrate she understands the pain working families have felt with stagnant wages and falling living standards.
She has offered an historic jobs program and investment in infrastructure in the first 100 days of her presidency.
But she conceded: “Too many people haven’t had a pay raise since the crash,” adding: “Democrats, we are the party of working people but we haven’t done a good enough job showing that we get what you’re going through, and that we’re going to do something about it.” she said.
“There’s a lot to do,” acknowledged Clinton, a departure from the campaign’s recent insistence that Trump was exaggerating the pain felt by working families. She added: “Some of you are frustrated – even furious. And you know what? You’re right.”