PHILADELPHIA >> On a day in which Hillary Clinton made history as the first woman nominated for the presidency by a major party, California Attorney General Kamala Harris spoke briefly to California delegates Tuesday morning, encouraging them to “own our power” and “be a leader” at this week’s Democratic National Convention.
“Let’s walk out of our breakfast meeting and walk into this convention being proud of who we are and what we stand for and take our rightful role of leadership in this convention and in this country,” she said.
Harris is running for U.S. Senate against U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez from Orange County, who recently suggested to a Southern California radio host that President Barack Obama endorsed Harris because they are both black. Harris has asked Sanchez to apologize.
At the Tuesday breakfast meeting, Harris told the delegates that she is a “proud daughter of California” and that her parents met during the protest movement at Berkeley, where they were “marching and shouting about this thing called justice.”
She was received with polite applause from the delegation, which had been more energized by Bernie Sanders’ appearance earlier.
Neither Harris nor Sanchez has a speaking slot at the convention, but Sanchez slipped on stage Monday night when her sister, fellow Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, spoke to delegates. The latter Sanchez even slipped in a plug for her sister.
“We will elect a Latina to the U.S. Senate,” Linda Sanchez said.
Sanders makes surprise visit
Bernie Sanders made a surprise visit this morning to the restless California Democratic delegation, telling them, “It’s easy to boo, but it is harder to look your kids in the face who will be living under a Donald Trump presidency.”
After having little luck suppressing the heckling from his passionate supporters at the opening of the Democratic National Convention on Monday, Sanders made a second appeal during the California delegation’s breakfast.
“What we must do or forever look back with regret is defeat Donald Trump,” he said, eliciting boos from the Bernie-or-bust supporters who crowded the stage.
The job of his supporters, he said, is to “give people a progressive agenda.”
Yet again, however, Sanders’ appeal had little effect on a forceful group of about a dozen or so supporters among the California delegation who booed down U.S. Rep Xavier Becerra, a Clinton superdelegate, and tussled with fellow Sanders delegates during the breakfast meeting.
“You’re ridiculous!” one Sanders delegate told the protesters at the front of the stage, echoing comedian Sarah Silverman’s line to diehard delegates Monday night at the convention. “Get out of the way!”
One of the Bernie-or-bust Sanders supporters, Alexis Edelstein from Southern California, said he was pushed by another delegate at the stage.
“Don’t ever touch me again,” he yelled at the delegate. Another shouted back, “Don’t threaten!”
Sam Hindi, a 54-year-old Sanders delegate from Foster City, said he and fellow delegate Lenny Siegel of Mountain View had met with a die-hard Sanders delegate for lunch Monday at the Reading Terminal Market and thought they made progress on working together. But it didn’t look like it Tuesday morning.
“Today they came back stronger,” Hindi said, “but I think the message will resonate.”
