Hillary scorns Trump, taking pride in policy expertise

WASHINGTON: Asserting that ''when the ceiling falls, the sky is the limit,'' Hillary Clinton on Thursday embraced the history that beckons her with all the confidence and poise of a woman who is unstoppable when she believes she deserves better. In a path-breaking moment for the United States, she formally accepted the Democratic Party nomination for president, the first female in United States’ history to win it, pledging that her vision of America did not involve building a wall or banning a religion in advancing the nation’s motto of ''e pluribus unum'' – out of many, one.
In a nearly hour-long address that was heard by millions across the world, one of America’s most accomplished- but polarizing- public figures showed she will be no shrinking violet as she launched a blistering attack on her Republican rival Donald Trump, whose social media taunts characterize her as ''Crooked Hillary.'' Accusing him of being divisive and spreading fear, she said ''little men'' like him are too volatile to be president, as she drew an expansive and inclusive portrait of a country based on its founding ideals in the city where it was forged.
''He wants to divide us- from the rest of the world, and from each other. He's betting that the perils of today's world will blind us to its unlimited promise,'' she told a rapturous Democratic flock where residual dissent seemed to die down as she reached out to the Bernie Sanders’ renegades. ''Love trumps hate… That's the country we're fighting for.''
It is seldom that a Presidential candidate attacks a rival so directly in a campaign, but this is an election like none before, and eight minutes into her address, Clinton lit into Trump with sulfurous taunts that peppered the rest of her speech. ''The family I'm from . . . well, no one had their name on big buildings. My family were builders of a different kind,'' she sneered in one of several jibes, asking since Trump ''talks a big game about putting America First,'' why his suits are made in Mexico, his ties made in China, his furniture in Turkey, and his picture frames in India.
The economic vision she outlined in this context certainly presages a tougher line in her presidency on free trade and outsourcing, issues on which she has been pilloried by both the Sanders and Trump campaign. In a nod to their concerns, she acknowledged that America’s growing economy was not working for many people and her presidency would ensure that US companies did not ship jobs overseas and get tax breaks only to hand out pink slips.
She also questioned Trump’s temperament to be commander-in-chief, taunting that he can’t even handle the rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign. ''He loses his cool at the slightest provocation. When he's gotten a tough question from a reporter. When he's challenged in a debate. When he sees a protestor at a rally. Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons,'' Clinton taunted.
Sure enough, Trump took the bait, shooting off half-dozen tweets during her speech. One of them read ''Hillary will never reform Wall Street. She is owned by Wall Street!''
While the speech did not surcharge the audience like the ones by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, political pundits agreed it was a clinical performance that ticked all boxes and covered all bases. She was as emotive and passionate as she has ever been in public.
In fact, she herself referred to her reputation as policy wonk who sweated the details, contrasting it to Trump’s attention deficit and lack of policy grasp. In the end, the candor was as effective than the gauzy effort by Chelsea Clinton to present her as a family-oriented mother and grandmother.
As confetti and balloons rained down at the conclusion of the Democratic jamboree, uniting the party and the country was the more dominant theme rather than just celebrating the gender barrier that has just broken. Hillary Clinton’s outreach embraced not just the Sanders insurgents, but also Republicans unhappy with Trump, and independents who– depending on the survey– constitute between 20 per cent to 40 per cent of voters.