Hillary Becomes First Woman To Be Nominated For President, Howard Dean Speaks To Delegates

Bill Clinton's history of speeches at the Democratic National Convention has been like his political career, a series of ups and downs, where the former president has played the role of validator, acceptor and character witness. The 42nd commander in chief has been allotted most of the 10 p.m. prime-time hour Tuesday night and Clinton aides expect him to speak for over 45 minutes. This will be the 10th speech Clinton has delivered to the DNC in his career. Clinton, who worked on the remarks holed up in the Logan Philadelphia hotel, wrote the entire speech by hand and without the input of people who regularly help him on remarks, aides said. Clinton aides and longtime advisers say the former president has taken more personal ownership over this speech than normal, writing the remarks out over the last few days by hand, before handing it over to Steve Reinhart, his longtime speechwriter, to make it readable (Clinton has notoriously bad handwriting) and get it into digital form. "This is different. This is more personal," John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager and longtime adviser, told reporters Tuesday at a breakfast sponsored by Bloomberg Politics. "This is about her." Nearly 44 years after Hillary Clinton visited this state as a law student, the cruel injustices of its past still lingering, she walked onto the campus of historically black Miles College and delivered a message: I haven't forgotten. "Among the common barriers we still have to knock down is systemic racism," Clinton told rallygoers on February 27. Her pitch worked: Three days later, on primary day, Alabama delivered Clinton her second-biggest margin of victory in the 2016 primaries — 78% of the vote. Her biggest margin of victory in a primary was in nearby Mississippi, another state with a large African-American population. She has no chance of winning either state in November.