2nd day of the convention: Obama says the election is about “who will fight for you”

This story first appeared at Newsmaker with JR.

Representative Salud Carbajal on Tuesday accused Donald Trump of being a conscientious objector and condemned the “insults to all veterans” of his Republican running mate JD Vance, saying the two had shown that the Democrats were the legitimate pro-military party.

The Santa Barbara congressman reported from Chicago, where he arrived late for President Biden's lengthy speech at the Democratic National Convention on Monday evening (the rumor that Biden spoke on Tuesday afternoon is untrue).

However, Salud said he had already attended half a dozen caucuses, conferences and roundtables and found delegates, activists and volunteers “with a level of energy we have never seen in previous elections.”

“I think there is always a concern about being overconfident, but I think the momentum is there,” he said Newsmaker in a Zoom interview.

“The momentum keeps building, and when you consider the contrast, that's the real reason,” he added. “The contrast is that we have a convicted felon, a very old person, running on the other side, who instead of focusing on policy is focused on stupid things, identity issues, culture wars, not on moving us forward.”

Carbajal said part of the campaign contrast resulted from Trump and Vance's recent controversial comments about the military and veterans. Trump, who during his first term described soldiers killed in combat as “Idiots and losers”, this week said the President's Medal of Freedom, a civilian award, is “far better” than the Congressional Medal of Honor, which is awarded for heroism in combat; Vance has since attacked hard the military record of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, who served for 24 years in the Minnesota National Guard.

“Who says that a civilian Medal of Freedom awarded by a president – one of his donors – is more important than the Medal of Honor awarded to those who sacrificed their lives or lost a limb fighting for our democracy and our country? Someone who avoided the draft because of bone spurs, someone who doesn't know what true patriotism is or means.”

What Obama said. Salud spoke with us just hours before former President Barack Obama delivered his convention speech. He delivered a masterful, nuanced speech that lavished praise on Biden, skillfully cast Trump in perspective, and passionately endorsed Harris, marking a clear turn from Monday's backward-looking rhetoric to the vision of the future that the Democratic candidates can present over the next two nights of the convention.

It was both a partisan speech and a thoughtful cultural diagnosis of the sharp political polarization afflicting America, returning to themes of decency, civility and communitarianism that first emerged when he starred in the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention before becoming the party's nominee just four years later.

“My first decision as your nominee turned out to be one of my best – and that was to ask Joe Biden to be my vice president,” Obama said, praising the president's “empathy, decency and hard-earned resilience.”

Of Trump's presidency, he said: “We've all seen this movie before. And we know that the sequel is usually even worse.”

“The torch has been passed,” the former president said of Harris' candidacy, adding that she would “sign a law that guarantees every woman the right to make her own decisions about her health care.”

The central question of the election, he told the delegates, was: “Who will fight for me?”

“One thing is certain: Donald Trump will not lose sleep over this issue,” Obama said. Harris, on the other hand, will “not only deal with her own problems, but will focus on yours as well.”

But the former president also called on Democrats to help cool the anger and hatred that animate U.S. politics: “Politicians and algorithms encourage us to caricature each other, troll each other, and fear each other,” he said. “Our fellow citizens deserve the same grace that we hope they will extend to us.”

Earlier in the evening, delegates at the United Center went through the colorful exercise of officially naming Harris and Walz as their nominees, assisted by, er, an LA DJ, essentially ending matters with Biden, who resigned several weeks ago under intense behind-the-scenes pressure from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other party leaders. Governor Gavin Newsom, speaking for the California delegation, announced the final votes for Harris, a longtime political foe.

Also at last night's convention were emotional speeches from Harris' husband, “Second Gentleman” Doug Emhoff, former First Lady Michelle Obama and Stephanie Grisham, Trump's former press secretary, who distanced herself from her former boss.

“He has no compassion, no morals and no loyalty to the truth,” she said. “He always told me, 'It doesn't matter what you say, Stephanie – if you say it often enough, people will believe you.' But it does matter – what you say matters, and what you don't say matters.”

Salud looks at the race. In our conversation with Carbajal, who served in the Marine Reserve, he also sharply criticized Vance for his slander of Walz's service,

“I was angry and horrified, to be honest,” he told us. “It is an insult to all veterans when [Vance] says it is ridiculous not to recognize Governor Walz's achievements.

“Governor Walz served honorably and it is foolish for one veteran to try to demagogue another veteran… this is completely unfounded.”

On other Convention-related matters, Carbajal stated:

• He said the U.S. economy is “booming,” accepting Biden's claim Monday night that the country has “the strongest economy in the world.” But he quickly added that he understood that working- and middle-class families struggling with “global inflation” might not agree. “It's one of those juxtapositions where it's true that the United States economy is one of the strongest economies in our world today, but people are still suffering the reality of increased prices.”
• He described the main contrast between Harris and Trump as generational: “Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are talking about the future and how we hope to continue to make this country the great place that it is by continuing to invest in people and making sure that we invest in our society in a way that continues to move us forward, an inclusive society that does not divide us, that does not look down on parts of our communities and our country, but that tries to unite us.”
• A new report from a Republican committee in the House of Representatives calls Biden a “diversionary tactic” and accuses him of “impeachable offenses.” “I think that's baseless. It's a distraction to distract from the fact that Kamala Harris is soaring. This is their way of distracting and tearing down President Biden because he had such negative numbers, and they want to fixate on that to try to get the American people to focus on that instead of the real issues.”

JR

Watch our conversation with Salud Carbajal on YouTube by clicking this link. The podcast version is here.