Die-hard Sanders’ backers divided on backing Clinton

The hacked internal communications were mostly boring stuff, but key messages confirmed a bias toward the Hillary Clinton campaign among Schultz and her DNC staff.

On Tuesday evening, Hillary Clinton, a meticulous and shrewd strategist, will entrust the primetime spot to the man she married in 1975 and helped navigate the upper rungs of elective office. Sanders’ loyalists heckled her at a Florida delegation breakfast and many expressed dismay that Clinton had given the Florida congresswoman the position of honorary chair of the campaign’s “50-state program”.

Wikileaks posted emails suggesting the DNC was favoring Clinton over Sanders during the primary season. “It’s time to end her political career for good”. “She’s done a lot for the party”, said Marion Williams. Mrs. Obama’s address all but wiped away earlier tumult in the convention hall that had exposed lingering tensions between Clinton and Sanders supporters.

In an interview with the Sun-Sentinel she said: “I have decided that in the interest of making sure that we can start the Democratic convention on a high note that I am not going to gavel in the convention”.

“I think under the circumstances, I think it would give those who opposed her fodder for disrupting this convention”. Others said they simply couldn’t support Clinton.

Ed Rendell, a top surrogate for Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on Monday said he wouldn’t let Wasserman Schultz speak at the event. She warned that the White House couldn’t be in the hands of someone with “a thin skin or a tendency to lash out” or someone who tells voters the country can be great again.

But Sanders’ own delegates were as angry as ever Tuesday morning, just hours after he implored them to support Clinton in his prime-time speech.

For Clinton, it was a turbulent start to a historic four-day gathering that will culminate in the nomination of the first woman to lead a major USA political party.

Wasserman Schultz faces a Democratic primary challenge from Tim Canova, a law professor backed by Sanders who has raised more than million. For many Sanders fans, the messages proved that their concerns about party officials preferring Clinton were correct. He said he planned to boo Wasserman Schultz.

“Brothers and sisters, this is the real world that we live in”, Sanders said as he tried to quiet the crowd. But she stepped aside, bowing to pressure from Democrats who feared the mere sight of her on stage would prompt strong opposition.