Mitch Perry
One of the few things I remember national reporters observing about Tampa when they came to cover the 2012 RNC was simply how absurdly hot and humid it was — which it certainly is in the summertime.
Presumably, there will be much more to say about the city of Philadelphia by the end of the week, but let’s just begin by saying it is just like Tampa in terms of the weather. It was 97 degrees yesterday and may be hotter today.
The protests in Tampa were pretty tame, in fact, absurdly tepid after such hype and concerns over what happened at the RNC in St. Paul in 2008. I’ve read there wasn’t that much activity in Cleveland last week, but that may not be the case at the DNC.
I was at the major Bernie Sanders protest which began in the early afternoon in downtown Philly on Sunday that climbed to more than 1,000 people by the time they marched down to the Wells Fargo Center. There is a palpable energy among the Sanders supporters, as everyone knows. But getting so many together at one time? Well, let’s just say that I wasn’t hearing much party unity being discussed yesterday.
We hope to have the piece up later this morning, but let me just say outright that the people here — many of them Bernie people — have absolutely no intention of voting for Hillary Clinton in the fall. None.
Sanders is scheduled to address the convention tonight. Can he say anything that might compel his supporters to make the leap to HRC? Might he personally be emboldened by the actions over the weekend that led the woman he’s criticized for nearly a year, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to get the heave-ho yesterday? Let’s all wait and see tonight.
In other news…
Wasserman Schultz announced she was stepping down as chair of the Democratic National Committee around 4 p.m. yesterday, right after this story before she had stepped down from being DNC chair, but I’m sure she’s very much looking forward to speaking to the Florida delegation at a breakfast this morning.
Before that event happened, two groups speaking (sort of) on behalf of many Sanders delegates, say they want do something, anything, to challenge Clinton’s selection of Virginia Senator Tim Kaine to be the Vice Presidential nominee.
