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California – Hillary Clinton’s savage takedown of Donald Trump in her recent foreign policy speech has her supporters fired up. As the likely Democratic nominee toured California on Saturday, crowds burst into applause at the mere mention of Thursday’s speech, in which Clinton cast Trump as dangerously unqualified to be president. Supporters say they feel more confident and excited in the wake of the address — which could benefit Clinton, who has struggled to inspire enthusiasm throughout the drawn-out primary contest.
“I loved it. I was waiting for that,” said Leslie Milke, 56, of Woodland Hills, a professor at Los Angeles Mission College, who saw Clinton. “I knew she was capable of that kind of speech . . . It really made me feel energised. It made me feel like we can win.”
Clinton’s speech in San Diego previewed her intention to mount an aggressive campaign against the real estate mogul. In it, she said Trump would lead the nation toward war and economic crisis, contrasting it with her long years of diplomatic experience and public service.
Looking to the November general election, Clinton, who is expected to clinch the Democratic nomination in the coming days, said that electing Trump would be a “historic mistake”. Since then Clinton has only increased the heat.
“I think it’s time to judge Donald Trump by his words and his deeds. I think his words and his deeds disqualify him from being president,” Clinton said in Oxnard, California, on Saturday. She later mockingly cited some of Trump’s past remarks, saying: “One of my personal favourites is he said he knows how to deal with Putin because he took the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow.”
Earlier in the day, at Los Angeles Mission College in Sylmar, Clinton attacked Donald Trump for talking in “hateful, very prejudicial, really unacceptable ways”.
As she shifted her focus almost entirely to the presumptive Republican nominee, her rival Bernie Sanders continued his quest for the Democratic nomination, defiantly declaring Saturday that Clinton will not have enough pledged delegates after Tuesday’s contests, and the Democrats are headed toward a contested summer convention.
Still, Clinton supporters like Walter Guzman, 44, of Oxnard, said it was time for her to turn to Trump, saying “she needs to stop concentrating on Bernie and start concentrating on Trump.”
Of course, engaging with Trump – who has shown little restraint with negative campaigning and is skilled at sucking up media attention – has its risks. Many of Trump’s GOP primary opponents sought to take him on unsuccessfully, most notably Sen Marco Rubio, whose Trump attacks were viewed as out of keeping with his inspirational message.
Meanwhile, Clinton scored a sweeping win in the US Virgin Islands on Saturday, picking up all seven pledged delegates at stake as she inched tantalisingly close to the Democratic nomination.
She is now just 60 delegates short of the 2,383 needed to advance to the November general election. The party said Clinton won 84.2 percent of the vote, while Bernie Sanders earned 12.2 percent. Under Democratic National Committee rules, a candidate must win at least 15 percent of the vote to be eligible to receive delegates. It was almost as big a margin as Barack Obama had in 2008, when he beat Clinton by 90 percent to 8 percent. – AFP
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