The Unconventional Diaries: Democratic heavy hitters step up to the plate

Yahoo News has enlisted participants at the Democratic National Convention representing different viewpoints and roles to file daily diary entries on their experiences in Philadelphia. They are your eyes and ears at one of the most unconventional political gatherings in generations, offering a front-row seat on the convention floor, behind-the-scenes access to key political meetings and a vivid picture of what conventions are really like, both inside and outside the arena. Here are yesterday’s entries.

(And here are the entries from last week’s Republican National Convention.)

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Day 3 of the convention started off with the easy acclamation of Tim Kaine as the vice presidential nominee.

After concluding the official business of the day, we heard from speaker after speaker who praised Hillary’s record of leadership. We’ve known her for so long — Hillary has been in public life nearly as long as I’ve been alive. Her record is deep and expansive. The number of battles she has fought, and the many fights she has won, is easy to forget.

We heard from the rank-and-file Democratic members of Congress, as well as some heavy hitters from the world of politics, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, NARAL president Ilyse Hogue, Sen. Harry Reid and former Rep. Gabby Giffords. One by one, they all spoke about Hillary’s record of steady leadership. They spoke to why we need someone like Hillary — someone with her judgment and compassion — in the Oval Office. The sheer number of testimonials made, stories told and examples given stood in stark contrast to the Republican convention in Cleveland.

But of the myriad of speakers, the speeches that moved me the most were from the daughter of Dawn Hochsprung, the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School, and Christine Leinonen, the mother of Christopher “Drew” Leinonen, who was killed in the Pulse attack in Orlando. The inability of this Congress to pass even the most common-sense gun safety regulations is one of the most unbelievable examples of partisan gridlock in Congress today. Like the Mothers of the Movement we heard from yesterday, these are women who shouldn’t have to be in front of us onstage. Yet with grace, resilience and strength, they are standing up and fighting for what is right.

Despite this, it is a fight Hillary and Tim Kaine haven’t been afraid to fight, and it is a fight we must win.

The convention also heard from Tim Kaine tonight. I’d heard a similar speech from him in Miami last week, so I was most interested to see how the delegates reacted to the senator. Just like in Miami, you could see the room won over as they heard his story, laughed at his jokes and joined in the refrain of saying “No” to Donald Trump. I have a feeling America will be surprised by his generous spirit, smart common-sense solutions to our shared challenges and strength of commitment to a strong and compassionate America.

Finally, Vice President Biden and President Obama brought the convention to their feet, time after time. In some ways, it was an early farewell — a look back at eight amazing years. We are in the final six months of their administration, yet, it feels like just yesterday we were watching him accept his own nomination in Denver. Both the vice president and president spoke about the Hillary they know and shared the many reasons why Donald Trump is unprepared and temperamentally unfit to hold the office of president of the United States.

The applause was raucous when President Obama finished speaking, and then crescendoed when Hillary unexpectedly joined him on stage. The stage is set for her big speech tomorrow. It’s been a long night, but I’m excited for what tomorrow will bring.

As written by Tracy Russo

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We headed to the office at 8 a.m. for our daily campaign call and then a bunch of coordination meetings. We had a 1 p.m. press conference with all of our surrogates including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., and New York City Councilman Joe Borelli. And then we raced off to do interviews at Fox, CBS and EWTN, which is a Catholic cable station.

We later swung by the CNN Grill for a while. It’s a restaurant the network set up inside the convention security perimeter. We talked to a bunch of reporters there, and then we hurried to an off-the-record dinner with more reporters and some of our surrogates from today. Then we headed back to our headquarters to get in the war room and do rapid-response to the vice president’s and the president’s speech.

One of the things we rolled out today was a video that addressed the chaos that exists in the Democratic Party and the concern that people have with Tim Kaine as the vice president, and how he doesn’t satisfy the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Obviously, we tried to talk a lot about the email scandals — with Hillary Clinton’s secret server violating national security and the Russian influence on this election now that the DNC was hacked.

We’ve also been talking about the division in the Democratic Party with the dissatisfied Sanders supporters. I think there’s going to be four camps. Some of those people are going to vote for Hillary. Some of them are going to stay home. Some of them are going to vote for Jill Stein. I think it’s great: Vote for Jill Stein! And then some of them are going to vote for Trump — I think you’re going to see that number as high as 10 or 15 percent. This is a huge wing of the Democratic Party — and three of those four camps are awesome for us. You had a walkout last night. They are not allowing someone to second Tim Kaine’s speech tonight because they’re afraid of him getting booed. You can’t even draw comparisons between the two conventions.

Getting around has gotten easier by the day, but Philadelphia has been logistically challenging in so many respects. In contrast, our team in Cleveland made sure that things were secure and routes were taken care of. It has been a logistical nightmare here.

One fun thing that happened today was that I got a challenge coin from Leslie Rutledge, the attorney general of Arkansas. People in law enforcement agencies and the military have these challenge coins with their insignias. It was very thoughtful of Leslie to give me one. I probably have a few hundred of them. I get them from everybody. It’s nice to get one when you can. I’ve got them all under a glass table in my office, but I keep the ones that are really personal in my house.

Leslie worked with us at the RNC last cycle, moved back home to Arkansas and ran for attorney general. She spoke at our convention last week, she’s been a huge success in the party and, I think, has a bright future. She could be the first female president. Coming from Arkansas, she’s following in Bill Clinton’s footsteps on the Republican side. She was able to come here and talk about the Arkansas roots of Hillary Clinton.

As told to Hunter Walker/Yahoo News

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I’ve been running ragged all day Wednesday, because our hotel is so far away from all the action, and there are so many people to see.

I started off my day at the delegation breakfast. Because I’ve been so busy, I haven’t been keeping up with all the press surrounding the convention. As the delegation was talking this morning, we noticed that our perception of the DNC differs from the media’s. The media’s makes it seem as if people are uneasy and constantly walking out in protest, but it doesn’t seem like that at all from our perspective on the floor.

On the first day of the convention, everyone feels like it’s their duty to get to the floor right on time for the gaveling in, and to stay in their seat all night. But that punctual gumption tends to change over the week. As the week goes on, people come in and out all night. Last night, some of my friends who happen to be Hillary delegates received an invitation for a reception a few miles from the arena and decided to go to it and then come back. Yes, they did physically walk out and leave the arena, but they did not walk out in protest. Maybe people think that’s “walking out.”

There have been a lot of protesters outside the arena throughout the week, but that has not been the attitude on the floor. I’m sure there were some people who made a point of walking out in protest, but most of the comings and goings were pretty casual, so to speak. People are just leaving to go for a walk or grab a bite to eat.

Funnily enough, on Wednesday, when the North Carolina delegation went to the arena, we had planned to take our traditional picture. Each state delegation does this, just in different places. This year, we decided to take ours in the arena concourse. So around 4:30 p.m., we’re all sitting in our section when our state party chair waves us over to take the delegation picture. Every delegation sits in their own blocked-off area, and it is pretty clear to see which state is sitting where. So we go and take the picture — Bernie delegates, Hillary delegates, everyone. No big deal. But then a few people’s phones started blowing up. Apparently, to those who were watching on TV, it looked as if the North Carolina delegation had staged a walkout.

We have 40 Bernie delegates from North Carolina, and everyone picked up their security credentials the day after Hillary was nominated. We thought there would be quite a few who would literally leave Philadelphia, go home and not attend the convention, but we were wrong.

Aside from running around to see all my friends, the convention was calm for me Wednesday. I went to the delegation breakfast and then attended the Asian-American and Pacific Islanders caucus meeting. I got to hear an address from Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., there. That was great, she’s such an amazing person. I also met a very nice journalist from the Indian press who worked for an Asian newswire. He was trying to find Indian-Americans who are active in the convention, so I happily sat for an interview with him.

Later, I ran into another group of South Asian journalists from a Pakistani news station that was filming, and I ended up doing an impromptu interview with them. I explained to them that while I was a Bernie supporter initially, I now fully support Hillary Clinton and look forward enthusiastically to voting for her in November. This interview was particularly difficult because there was a language barrier — I only speak English.

People are getting physically worn out. It’s a combination of the heat and the distance between the convention center and the arena. The logistics here are improving, but it is pretty hard to deal with because everything is so spread out. As people are getting more physically tired, they’re becoming less likely to sit through seven hours of programming, day in, day out.

In any case, I always look forward to hearing President Obama and Vice President Biden speak. Joe Biden was actually my first choice to run for president. I love Hillary, I love Bernie, but I was really hoping for Joe Biden to run. I didn’t declare my allegiance to Bernie until the vice president decided he wasn’t going to run. I was really looking forward to hearing them speak.

As told to Susanna Heller/Yahoo News

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I started glowing Monday night and I have not stopped since.

On Tuesday afternoon I went to a reception hosted by Barbara Lee, a dear friend of mine from Massachusetts. Barbara has been at the forefront of getting women elected in her state, which was a desert for women politicians for a really long time. She has also underwritten a lot of really good research on campaigning for higher office — with special attention paid to women in the Senate and the House. There was a great group of women at the reception, including the mayor of Dayton, Ohio. I met lots of women who hold state and local office, many of whom are thinking of running for governor. The event was both successful and energizing. It’s great to see the women who are already out there and ready to make a difference.

Tuesday night, of course, was just glorious. My husband and I did not go to the arena; we actually gave our credentials to our grandchildren who are in Philadelphia. Everybody should go to a convention once and see it for themselves.

I loved hearing the roll call last night, though. I always do, and those ceremonies really move me. They remind me of the democratic nature of all of this. I enjoyed hearing Bill Clinton speak about Hillary. I knew some of the stories he told about their shared history, but others were new to me.

In any case, it was interesting to watch the DNC coverage on TV and keep up with Twitter at the same time. I watched this curious phenomenon unfold. In a sort of double refraction, I watched women all around the country be so moved by Bill’s obvious love and admiration for Hillary while all of these men snarkily tweeted about his speech running too long. I hadn’t had that experience since my tenure as director of communications in the White House, when Bill Clinton would give State of the Union addresses that would last more than an hour. The press would all gripe about how long it went. The next day, however, you’d find that people not only watched the speech, but also kept watching.

We saw this phenomenon last night, except Bill timed his speech precisely. He finished at exactly 11 p.m. And when he finished, Hillary came on. The shattering of the glass ceiling was phenomenal. Wow. Seeing those presidents and watching her come through … I just thought that was glorious. The people who know how to make technology work can really tell a story quickly and emotionally. I went to sleep with a big smile on my face and woke up with a big smile on my face, too.

On Wednesday morning we had a Women for Hillary meet-and-greet where women came in and mingled. A main purpose of this was to sign up new people for the Women for Hillary program. We also wanted the opportunity to break into small groups and talk about organizing. Wherever I go, I meet more women from Ohio. I do think there is something going on there. Ohio is also one of the state targets for our Jewish Women for Hillary ambassador program. We’re all going to get together to kick that program off soon.

As I was on my way to lunch, I heard about Donald Trump’s calling on Russia to hack into Hillary’s personal emails. It was just astonishing. If this were an opera, this would be the minor motif. Of course, Hillary Clinton’s nomination is the major motif. But every time I hear about Donald Trump, I hear this sinister music. It kind of gets louder from time to time, and you know there will be a denouement. This is concerning, especially combined with his comments about not having investments in Russia. We know he doesn’t have investments in Russia … he couldn’t afford to. The question is this: What is Russia investing in Donald Trump? Not to mention that the Trump campaign took that line about supporting Ukraine out of the GOP platform. If we needed any reminder about just how serious this is and what’s at stake — this is it.

The ways in which this election is about security, keeping our families safe and building a safer world are pretty stunning. Trump is so reckless and so dangerous. The Mothers of the Movement, standing on the stage Tuesday night with their courage and dignity, are such an example for us all.

The lunch I went to Wednesday honored people who worked on the Democratic presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996. We got commemorative buttons, so now I have three buttons reading ’92, ’96 and ’16, which is fun. It was great to see so many old friends there. It was a lovely event and a good reminder that so many people from those administrations are out there now and are totally committed to this election.

It’s busy, but it’s great. This is what conventions are like. It’s all about meeting the mayor of Dayton and the women of Ohio, seeing the people I worked with at the White House and seeing lots of good, old friends. Every one of these people is out there now working, organizing, helping Hillary in their own way. Inside the hall, the feeling of this week has genuinely shifted toward unity.

As told to Susanna Heller/Yahoo News

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It’s been a long day, but a really good day. Wednesday was an emotional night. It was a brilliant presentation to highlight so many contrasts between the two conventions.

Between the hatred of Donald Trump and the leadership we’ve shown here, people can see the sharp contrast of how we espouse love and compassion and a belief in a better future rather than falling for the temptation to resort to the lowest common denominator.

Closing with the president was incredible. He delivered his speech tonight with passion, and he was compelling. I think it was a beautifully orchestrated way of handing over the baton. It was dignified and sincere, and an inspiration. I was getting texts and emails from all over the country, but I even got one from a friend in Australia. We’ve laid out a contrast this week with Republicans, point by point, as if we were arguing in court in front of a jury. You can see what this party believes in and why. It was up to President Obama to close the night, and he did so beautifully.

It was wonderful when Joe Biden talked about his late son. Beau Biden and I are about the same age and got elected attorney general together, back in 2006. His father was right that the country only got a glimpse of the kind of man he was. Beau could have been president some day. We loved him and believed in him. His loss was so sad. It isn’t lost on anyone that, but for Beau’s death, Joe may have run and who knows how that would have turned out. But there he was tonight, reiterating that the needs of the country and our common efforts to move it forward are bigger than any one person or group of people. That was a message that was once again lost on the minority of Sanders people, who tried to interrupt again. That was sad and frustrating. I hope it wasn’t too visible on television.

It was also great hearing Tim Kaine speak. I thought he did a fine job introducing himself to the country. He made the case against Donald Trump well. And I thought Michael Bloomberg, an independent businessman, articulated a great case regarding Donald Trump. And the military and law enforcement voices were very strong to me.

The family members of victims of gun violence were moving, none more than Gabby Giffords. If you didn’t cry when Gabby Giffords walked out, then you wouldn’t cry for Old Yeller. She was so brave and sweet and strong, I have to think she was inspirational to anyone who saw her.

We had brunch with the Democratic Attorney Generals Association this morning. I visited with Josh Shapiro, who is the AG candidate here in Pennsylvania and a very nice guy. I talked to some good friends, including Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. He’s very excited about his friend Tim Kaine, who has a long record in Virginia politics.

The Arkansas party was a nice success. President Clinton was there, along with Sen. Al Franken and a few other guests. It was nice to hear the president talk in a smaller setting. He talked a lot about Mack McLarty, his friend and former chief of staff. President Clinton got very personal about their lifelong friendship. It was really sweet.

As told to Andrew Bahl/Yahoo News
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