After a day and a half of discord and resistance by Bernie Sanders backers, the Democratic National Convention finally became what its organizers intended: the Hillary Clinton show.

Clinton formally earned the party’s presidential nomination Tuesday, the final boost coming from Sanders himself. The Vermont senator laid down his arms once and for all, symbolically closing the convention’s nomination vote with an enthusiastic endorsement of Clinton’s election.


Suddenly, a convention that had been marred by outbursts from Sanders’ delegates and become an advertisement for the party’s disunity, morphed into a carefully choreographed infomercial for Clinton’s candidacy – and its first installment starred one of Democrats’ best weapons: former President Bill Clinton.

"She's the best darn change-maker I've ever met in my life,” the would-be First Husband said, delivering a largely biographical address packed with personal details about the couple’s courtship and early years in Arkansas.

He also delivered a forceful rebuke of GOP nominee Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s portrayal of his wife as “crooked” and the lusty chants of “lock her up” at last week’s GOP convention, as speaker after speaker described her as too dangerous to run the country. Clinton said they had essentially created “a cartoon” to run against.

“What is the difference in what I told you and what they said? How do you square it? You can't. One is real, the other is made up,” Clinton said.

"Earlier today, you nominated the real one," he added.

Clinton’s speech followed powerful testimonials from the mothers of black men and women killed in confrontations with police. The “black lives matter” chants that filled the arena contrasted starkly with the “blue lives matter” refrain that echoed at the Republican National Convention last week. The RNC, on the other hand, featured the parents of security personnel killed in Benghazi and people killed at the hands of undocumented immigrants.

The DNC interspersed its program with brief, whimsical videos highlighting some of GOP nominee Donald Trump’s most controversial comments on women.

But most of the evening was focused on touting Hillary Clinton’s decades in the public eye, and the public policy battles she waged as First Lady, senator and secretary of state. Speakers included former Attorney General Eric Holder, Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards, actresses Meryl Streep, Elizabeth Banks, Lena Dunham and America Ferrara. Each sought to reinforce themes highlighted by Clinton’s campaign: her work on social justice issues, to support 9/11 first responders, to advocacy for children and health care reform. They were all framed under the header “Fights of Her Life.”

Many included personal details about interactions with Clinton – who’s struggled to overcome a reputation as wooden and unrelatable – in an attempt to humanize her.

“Something happens when you meet Hillary,” said Ryan Moore, who has a rare form of dwarfism and met Clinton during a health care reform battle in the 1990s. “No matter how busy she is … she makes you feel like the most important person in her day.”

Though inside the arena, a sense of normalcy took hold, the surrounding Philadelphia streets suddenly became the scene of increasingly angry and confrontational protests.

Hardcore Sanders supporters who rejected the results of the primary spilled out of the arena, and into the adjacent the media filing center, forcing police to barricade the entrance. Confrontations between competing demonstrators, as well as with police, escalated and led to some physical altercations and shouting matches.

Earlier in the day, the greatest intrigue surrounded Sanders’ loyalists inside the arena. Though he pleaded with them for two days to restrain any frustration and support Clinton’s nomination, it was unclear whether they would attempt to disrupt the proceedings. But the presidential roll call went off with little audible protest, and Sanders – taking one last opportunity to bask in the warmth of his supporters in the arena – delivered the final nudge that pushed Clinton over the top.

“I move that all votes cast by delegates be reflected in the official record, and I move that Hillary Clinton be selected as the nominee of the Democratic Party for president of the United States,” the Vermont senator declared in his signature gruff voice. The convention approved his motion and Clinton was officially the Democratic Party nominee.

For Sanders, it was the capstone to a campaign that saw him surge from obscurity to a genuine threat to Clinton’s nomination. He soaked in the moment as states began casting their votes, earning wild cheers each time delegates delivered ballots for him. His brother, Larry, representing a delegation of “Democrats abroad,” delivered a teary-eyed homage to Sanders, one final symbolic nod to the senator’s campaign.

His move to nominate Clinton by “acclamation” capped an otherwise frantic day of negotiations between Clinton and Sanders loyalists, aiming to prevent an embarrassing display of resistance on the floor of the national convention. But the results were mixed.

Moments after Sanders' gesture, nearly 200 of his supportive delegates stormed out of the arena, chanting "walk out" and wielding signs with slogans like "#demexit" and "on nov 8 don't say we didn't warn you." Some wore black gags.

That turmoil followed internal drama that wracked the convention Monday, when furious Sanders backers continued lashing out, even after engineering the ouster of national Democratic leader Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Leaked DNC emails posted on Wikileaks revealed bias against Sanders by Wasserman Schultz and reinforced Sanders’ contention that the party apparatus was trying to undermine him.

Late Tuesday, reports indicated that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly certain the DNC leak was perpetrated by Russians, adding a layer of international intrigue to the proceedings. Trump, who has faced criticism for cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, rejected the suggestion that the leak was an attempt to boost his chances in the general election.

“In order to try and deflect the horror and stupidity of the Wikileakes [sic] disaster, the Dems said maybe it is Russia dealing with Trump,” he tweeted. “Crazy!”

Darren Samuelsohn, Gabriel Debenedetti, Tyler Pager, Louis Nelson and Nick Gass contributed to this report.

