Hillary Clinton formally accepted the nomination to be Democratic Party’s standard bearer as their presidential candidate on Thursday evening, and CNN’s America’s Choice 2016 panel couldn’t be happier. “The words that came to my mind were kind of— sturdy, steely,” CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger gushed, “It was not an oratorical masterpiece. It did have its great moments.” Borger continued to praise Clinton:
But she answered the question of why and she also was most passionate—to David's point again— on going after Donald Trump. Case by case, issues by issue on his temperament, on his world view, on the fact that she is a unifier, on this notion of American exceptionalism.
Borger also took a jab at Republicans by saying their convention couldn’t compete. “I think here the Democrats got handed the baton after the Republican convention,” she stated, “And what we've seen for the past four days culminating in this speech is that they ran with it. They ran with it.”
Former White House official David Axelrod explained that Clinton did well in catering to younger voters who supported her rival, “on campaign finance reform, on some populous economic issues.” “She invoked the historic moment in way I think was inspiring,” he said.
Van Jones agreed with Axelrod saying she touched on all of their interests in a truly “authentic way.” “If look at the speech, you actually see the impact positively of every one of these sort of movements of these young people,” Jones remarked. He went on the claim, “And it shows a level of political genius—and I will say that word, genius—and also heart to embrace those young people like she did tonight.”
The only dissenting voice on the panel was NewsBusters contributor Jeffrey Lord who argued that, “I'm looking at the Military Times which is saying that the troops prefer Trump to Clinton by a huge margin, almost two to one.” Former Bill Clinton speech writer Paul Begala responded by completely writing off their opinion, “The bigger question here is not, “Who do the troops support.” But, “Who supports the troops,” And she made the case she'll be better for the military than Trump.”