6:15 p.m. EDT July 24, 2016 Hillary Clinton’s nominating convention that begins Monday is being choreographed to tell a life story about the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee that, despite her decades in the public eye, aims to reveal new insights while offering a sharp contrast to last week's GOP confab.
In addition to Washington and Hollywood luminaries, Democrats convening in Philadelphia this week have lined up “everyday Americans” — both those she's helped over her career and those she's met on the campaign trail — as character witnesses for prime-time speaking turns and video presentations. The goal is to demonstrate a lifelong commitment to public service and to share more about Clinton's Midwestern upbringing and middle-class roots that preceded her years as first lady, senator and secretary of State.
“There will be some people talking about things that neither she nor they (her family) have really discussed in a big public way before,” said Joel Benenson, her chief strategist. “That will be an important thing,” he said.
Campaign officials want to go straight at her biggest vulnerability: that many Americans say they just don’t trust her or view her favorably.
The GOP convention featured Republican nominee Donald Trump’s allies bashing Clinton — and delegates frequently chanting "lock her up!" — even as it was short on revelatory personal anecdotes about the Republican nominee (other than from his children).
In contrast, the Democrats’ approach borrows a page from Bill Clinton’s 1992 New York convention that featured average Americans and a video dubbed “The Man from Hope” that reintroduced an elite Yale Law School graduate as a southern boy who grew up poor.
Officials say the videos and speeches in this year's convention will demonstrate a consistency of character over her lifetime, including her activism on issues such as child welfare, health care and women’s rights.
“Voters will see very much a connection from life lessons she learned growing up in the family she did and what has really rooted her in what have become the causes of her life,” said Benenson.
However, the release by Wikileaks of approximately 20,000 hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee — which show party officials favoring Clinton over primary rival Bernie Sanders — will now compete with the narrative Democrats had hoped to present. Amid the growing controversy, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced on Sunday afternoon that she would step down from her post at the end of the convention.
Clinton’s team knows they can’t easily flip her trust ratings, which, along with Trump’s, are among the lowest of any presidential candidate in memory. They do, however, think they can make voters dislike her a little less by offering testimonials from people she’s had a positive impact on, while making her more relatable.
“She grew up as an ordinary kid in the suburbs of Chicago who went to public school,” said Melanne Verveer, the former first lady’s chief of staff, who remains a close confidante.
Among the things people may not know: Clinton's Methodist faith is “very significant,” Verveer said, citing an influential youth minister who encouraged her to focus on the underserved, including arranging for her to babysit the children of migrant workers while they picked vegetables.
