Obamas steal the show
A raucous crowd energized by the arrival of the two most popular Democrats in the country kept its applause short so former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama weren’t ushered onto the stage late. Less than 24 hours after President Joe Biden bowed out of the spotlight to hand the reins of the party over to Vice President Kamala Harris, the powerful Obama duo waltzed onto the stage — more or less on time.
The former president’s address walked a fine line of helping to pass the torch to Harris without outshining her. He was at home in front of the crowd and in Chicago. He tapped into the themes of his own successful campaigns, telling the jubilant crowd, “Yes, she can!”
Meanwhile, Biden is tucked away in California on vacation. He was pushed to the back end of Monday night’s opening ceremonies. His appearance was delayed by what the Democratic National Convention officials said was “raucous applause.”
Obama mentioned Biden in his address on Tuesday, praising his former vice president, with whom he has not always had a comfortable public relationship.
“History will remember Joe Biden as a president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger,” he said. “I am proud to call him my president but even prouder to call him my friend.”
The former president appeared to be the one who was tapped to act as the bridge between the Biden and Harris presidencies. Neither Biden nor Harris was at the convention on Tuesday when delegates participated in the first in-person roll call vote since 2016. The vote was ceremonial, with Democrats having used a virtual roll call earlier this month to cement Harris as their nominee.
Not having the top members of the current administration in the building — Harris was at a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, whipping votes at the same location Republicans hosted their convention last month — didn’t appear to temper the excitement on the floor in Chicago, though, according to our team of reporters and editors who are in the thick of the convention all week.
There wasn’t space for staid, quiet politics on Tuesday. But even the celebration of the roll call-turned-dance party showed how quickly Biden is being jettisoned by his party despite the “We Love Joe” signs and the fêting that took place weeks after he was pushed out when it was clear he was putting Democrats on a path to defeat against former President Donald Trump.
“The roll call got off to a shaky start with ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ music cued up and cameras on Alabama for the kickoff state by accident when it was supposed to be Delaware going first in honor of the home state of President Joe Biden,” our team wrote about the vote.
Democrats are still basking in the joy of having a new candidate. There is a feeling of impending success with Harris overtaking Trump in several polls nationally and sparking enough excitement for downballot contests that election handicappers are changing their tunes.
Tonight, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) will address the convention in the biggest moment of his career, teeing up Harris’s acceptance speech on Thursday night to cap off proceedings in Chicago. Once the DNC buzz wears off, the real test for Harris will begin.
Click here to read more about Obama’s address, the roll-call madness, and everything you might have missed from last night.
And make sure to stay tuned here for all things DNC this week.
Democrats bang their head against a Walz
The Harris-Walz campaign rollout hasn’t been as smooth as Democrats would like. There isn’t a lack of enthusiasm, but Walz hasn’t had much time to enjoy his role without finding himself at the center of a new controversy.
Each new controversy has been due to Walz’s selective way of speaking. It’s debatable whether he has been caught in any outright lies, though he has been criticized for his fast and loose ways of speaking.
He achieved the rank of command sergeant major in the Army National Guard and then retired. He didn’t retire as a command sergeant major, though, because he didn’t serve long enough with the title to retain it after leaving the service.
He was in the National Guard for 24 years and deployed overseas. But he was pilloried for comments he made that were shared by the Harris campaign about stopping people from carrying “weapons of war” like he had. Walz was never engaged in a combat situation.
Now, his comments about his family’s use of fertility treatments are coming under fire, creating more problems for Harris, White House Reporter Haisten Willis wrote for us this morning.
Fertility treatments, and in vitro fertilization in particular, have become political flashpoints.
“IVF has been politically charged because some anti-abortion groups oppose it on the grounds that it leads to the destruction of fertilized human embryos,” Haisten wrote.
“IVF became lumped together with partisan debates over abortion and reproductive healthcare this spring when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in a complicated malpractice case that embryos have legal personhood rights,” he wrote.
Though it is often used as shorthand for fertility treatments broadly, Walz is catching flak after his wife, Gwen Walz, told CNN the couple didn’t use IVF. They opted for intrauterine insemination, which is often tried before IVF treatments.
Whether Walz and his wife had used fertility treatments to start their family wouldn’t have become a problem if the governor hadn’t used it as a ramp to take a jab at Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), his vice presidential foil in the 2024 contest.
“This one’s personal for me about IVF and reproductive care,” Walz said this month at a rally in Arizona. “When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatment.”
Harris’s campaign also posted a video of Walz saying, “If it was up to [Vance], I wouldn’t have a family because of IVF, and the things that we need to do. … My kids were born that way.”
The campaign argued Walz was using IVF as shorthand.
Republicans weren’t buying it.
“Is there anything this guy doesn’t lie about?” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Mike Berg posted on X.
It’s not clear how harmful yet another line of attack against Walz is going to be, though. Strategists told Haisten that taking shots at the vice president is all well and good if Republicans have the opportunity, but that isn’t likely to make the difference between victory and defeat in November.
However, if Republicans can link Walz’s half-truths to Harris in any way, showing that she failed to vet him properly or that she knew he was fudging his record, then they might wind up doing more than banging their head against the wall.
Click here to read more about the headache Walz is giving Democrats.
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For your radar
Biden has nothing on his public schedule.
Harris is in Chicago and has nothing on her public schedule.
Trump and Vance will speak about national security in Asheboro, North Carolina, at 2 p.m.
