Democratic emails: All about the hack, the leak, the discord

At least one national opinion poll showed Trump benefiting from a convention “bump” and pulling just ahead of Clinton, having lagged her for months.

The cache of emails leaked on Friday by the WikiLeaks website disclosed that DNC officials explored ways to undercut Sanders’ insurgent presidential campaign, including raising questions about whether Sanders, who is Jewish, was an atheist. The uproar led to the forced resignation of party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Trump cheered the disruptions from the campaign trail. “We’re going to have a convention this week that highlights success stories”.

But he’s also looking for Clinton to more clearly reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multinational trade deal with Pacific Rim nations that is strongly opposed by Sanders as well as by Republican nominee Donald Trump.

“It’s slightly unique for Clinton and Trump because they’re incredibly well-known”, Pfeiffer said. “Normally when you get to the convention, the broader general election electorate pays attention to learn about you, so you’re framing your narrative. But for Clinton and Trump, because they’re so well-known, you’re re-framing the narrative because there’s not a lot of brand new information you will learn”.

“They’ve had a huge impact on the party already”, Yarmuth said. But she stepped aside, bowing to pressure from Democrats who feared the mere sight of her on stage would prompt strong opposition.

Clinton and her campaign have grappled with a number of controversies, including her use of a private email server at the State Department as well as her handling of an attack on a USA consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Democratic pollster Geoff Garin said he is realistic about how hard it is to remake Clinton’s image.

But Ava Sharifi, a delegate from Spokane, thinks Clinton is trying to appeal to a very different group of voters with her of pick of Kaine as the vice presidential nominee. “There’s not going to be many more chances like this”.

Some supporters even chanted a line lifted from the loud crowds at the Republican National Convention: “Lock her up”.

Clinton, too, has confronted her share of challenges in rallying the Democratic base.

While her ouster was a major victory for Sanders, it wasn’t enough to ease the frustration of his supporters.

A democratic socialist, the USA senator from Vermont galvanised young and liberal voters with his calls to rein in Wall Street and eradicate income inequality. But Sanders’ aides reached out to the Clinton campaign Monday afternoon to express concerns that supporters would still try to disrupt the proceedings, according to a Democratic official. Outside the convention hall, several hundred marched down Philadelphia’s sweltering streets with signs carrying messages such as “Never Hillary”. This is a almost decade-long quest for the candidate, who first sought the nomination in the 2008 election, but ultimately lost to President Barack Obama.

“I believe that (selecting Kaine) was a tactic in her campaign to pull in the Republican vot”. Kaine began his speech with a message about inclusion — in Spanish.

“Bienvenidos a todos, bienvenidos a todos en nuestro pais, verdad, por que somos americanos, todos”, said Kaine, which translates to: “Welcome to everyone, welcome to everyone in our country, right, because we’re all Americans, all of us”.

But the single most potent weapon Clinton has to unite Democrats may be Trump.

Wasserman Schultz resigned on Sunday, effective at the end of the convention, after the leak of more than 19,000 DNC emails put the spotlight back on Sanders’ failed bid to win the nomination and in particular on his complaints during the campaign that the party establishment was working to undermine him. The party said the comments do not reflect the party’s values or commitment to neutrality in the primary process. “And now, they’re looking around and saying oh my God, Trump could be president”.