“Chicago is my kind of town,” sang Frank Sinatra with his unmistakable swagger. You could say that it is for the Democratic Party as well. It was here that in 1896 William Jennings Bryan became the youngest presidential candidate in history, at the age of 36, thanks to a populist speech against the magnates of the late 19th century. Where Franklin Roosevelt gave birth to the New Deal at the 1932 convention and opened the door to a golden age of a party that was blown up in 1968, amidst protests against the Vietnam War in the streets and in the midst of a merciless fight between the delegates that led the Democrats to a resounding defeat at the polls. The kind of city where Bill Clinton also brought his supporters to his feet in 1996 to the rhythm of, ahem, the Macarenaheading into his second term.
On Monday, the great metropolis of the Midwest welcomed back more than 4,500 delegates from the Democratic Party who had come from all over the country to acclaim candidate Kamala Harris (and her running mate, Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota) in a scenario that would have been unthinkable just four weeks and one day ago, when, on a random Sunday, Joe Biden announced on X that he was giving up seeking re-election and, shortly after, supported Harris’ replacement. The president of the United States and his legacy were destined to become the main protagonists of the first of the four days of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) with a speech in prime time. Biden’s plan is to disappear for the rest of the week to hand over the helm to the new captains of the party.
Chicago woke up to dozens of streets closed and hotels packed to the rafters to welcome the nearly 50,000 people expected, including delegates, journalists, volunteers, Hollywood celebrities and social media personalities, for the Democratic caucus. An extraordinary police deployment also woke up early, ready to deal with protests called for different reasons, from climate change to the state of the economy, but above all for one: Israel’s war in Gaza. “Our city is really good at this kind of thing,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson at a press conference on Monday morning, while recalling that his police officers have received intensive courses in “de-escalation tactics” of violence.
The goal, which has been achieved for now, is to avoid the spectacle of 1968, when students like historian Michael Kazin, then a young man in his twenties, were brutally harassed by the police. “The fact that this violence was broadcast on television infuriated millions of Americans in the comfort of their homes,” recalled Kazin, who spent a night in jail and left the city before the convention ended, in a recent interview.
Hilarry Clinton greets attendees at the 1996 Democratic Convention in Chicago, just after Bill Clinton’s acceptance speech as a candidate for the White House.Reuters
African-American delegate Leon Braithwaite, vice-chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, was not at the convention, but he is a veteran of the game: he has attended 11 conventions, including Clinton’s in Chicago in 1996. This time he feels differently: “We arrived more united than ever, even more so than on that occasion,” he explained in the morning in the corridors of the gigantic convention centre where the meetings are held prior to the big evening speeches, which will feature Bill Clinton among their speakers on Wednesday and will take place, as in 1996, at the United Center, the home court of the Chicago Bulls.
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“The fact that Ohio rules forced us to vote for Harris before the convention has allowed her to embark on two weeks of intense campaigning, and she comes to Chicago with a huge boost that will get a new boost here. I think Kamala can win in more states than [Barack] Obama,” Braithwaite says. [A Obama también se le espera en la ciudad en la que maduró como político y donde dio su famoso discurso de despedida como presidente].
Harris and Walz’s packed electoral schedule in the decisive states will include a rally on Tuesday in Milwaukee, in the crucial venue of Wisconsin, two hours by car from Chicago. It will be in the same stadium where the Republican National Convention was held in July. Before hitting the road again, Walz toured the various caucus meetings (Hispanic, Black, Native American and Asian American) on Monday to harangue the delegates and underline the message that there is a lot at stake this week and that the campaign is confident that Chicago will once again be a talisman, the stage where the best of what the party is capable of will emerge.
“There are 78 days left until a historic generational change arrives [en las elecciones]“This is our time. We can do anything we set our minds to. We will work hard. And I will rest when I die!”
And here the reference was not to Sinatra, but to the Californian singer-songwriter Warren Zevon.
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