Hillary Clinton takes campaign on the road after DNC 2016

“In the end, it comes down to what Donald Trump doesn’t get: that America is great, because America is good”, Clinton said.

“We are clear-eyed about what our country is up against”.

“America is once again at a moment of reckoning”, she declared.

Clinton has been a frequent Republican target during her more than three decades in national politics, most recently for her use of a private email server for government business at the State Department. Delight in the moment could not be dampened by the sporadic heckling of protesters, some who pressed the cause for Palestinian rights, others who simply failed to accept the process through which Bernie Sanders, the USA senator from Vermont, failed to secure the nomination.

Vying to be the first woman elected United States president, Clinton called her nomination “a milestone”. “Happy for boys and men, too – because when any barrier falls in America, for anyone, it clears the way for everyone. That’s why when there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit”, the 68-year-old Clinton said.

“I get it that some people just don’t know what to make of me”.

“I’m proud that we put a lid on Iran’s nuclear program without firing a single shot”, she said.

While Clinton must play to the party’s base – and seek to soothe bruised Sanders supporters – a key mission was to appeal to crossover voters and independents wary of Trump.

Pine said he enjoyed seeing the Democratic Party in all its diversity. Bernie Sanders – wore day-glo green shirts to stand out in protest.

In what was likely his last prime-time speech of his political life, Vice President Joe Biden delivered a roaring case for Clinton. “She know and I know and anybody who’s ever tried to accomplish something knows that you can’t get it done by yourself”, she said. “Your cause is our cause”. But in presenting herself as potentially the first woman president of the United States, Clinton has to first prove to the nation that she is, indeed, a woman who embodies the sort of attributes generally defined as womanly. Hours before she spoke, people hoping to catch the address firsthand were being turned away from already-full seating areas in the arena. And where Trump congratulated his delegates merely for clapping for the one gay speaker, Democrats featured a long procession of gays and lesbians – and then, on Thursday, Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person to speak at a convention. More important, while they were audible in the hall itself, they were not really noticeable on the television feed, which is how the overwhelming majority of viewers see the conventions.

Speakers, some of whom included military and police officers, made frequent mentions of religion and patriotism.

“No one has worse judgement than Hillary Clinton – corruption and devastation follows her wherever she goes”, he said in another tweet.

The four-day convention has been a parade of party heavyweights – including President Barack Obama who stirringly hailing Clinton as his political heir – and tweeted after her Thursday speech that “she’s tested”. They both garner high “unpopularity” ratings. Seizing the optimistic Reaganesque brand of patriotism Trump has abandoned for fury and fear, Clinton’s campaign depicted an ascendant America whose Obama-era progress would be jeopardized by the bigoted, ignorant “con man” on the other side. All that was left was for Hillary Clinton to step into history. But, she also said having a woman as president is good for men and boys, as breaking down all discriminatory borders is a good thing for everybody.

“Don’t let anyone tell you we don’t have what it takes”, Clinton said.

The strongman comparisons arose from Trump’s boastful rhetoric as well as his constitutionally questionable policy proposals, such as setting up a database of U.S. Muslims, torturing suspected terrorists, rounding up 11 million undocumented immigrants with a deportation force and loosening libel laws to make it easier to sue reporters.

And in a bold admission for a candidate seeking in large part to build on Obama’s policies, she said the economy “is not yet working the way it should”.

Donald Trump pulled off the upset at least in television popularity.

Instead, with Trump, Democrats are characterizing the contest as a battle between democratic pluralism and authoritarianism.