However, I don’t blame those Sanders delegates who chose to walk out. We all know that the DNC, at the very least, “slanted” the primaries in Clinton’s favor and sought to undermine the Sanders campaign. We all know that Clinton, by way of the FBI’s statement on her email scandal, is inherently dishonest, even to her own supporters, and that collusion between her campaign and the DNC possibly occurred during the primaries. I don’t blame those Sanders delegates for protesting, or booing, or for feeling jilted.

But I do blame them for not following Bernie’s lead. Sanders, in his speech on Monday night, called for unity in the Democratic Party. And at the end of the roll call vote on Tuesday night, he graciously moved to nominate Clinton after he did not win the vote. He made a selfless gesture toward unity, and not just Democratic unity.

He made a gesture toward unifying against Donald Trump.

I don’t want to buy into the fear-mongering, but beating Trump at the polls in November is of the utmost importance. His narcissistic nihilism, tinged with fascism, framed by xenophobia, and fueled by racism is, in the words of the Washington Post editorial board, a “unique and present danger” that the GOP has officially presented to the general electorate. Now Trump is everyone’s problem. And, unfortunately, Hillary Clinton is now the only major party nominee that stands between Donald Trump and the presidency.

For those who aren’t willing to risk a third party vote, this choice boils down to a difficult moral dilemma. One one hand, we have a deceitful neoliberal who lacks favorability and is quite possibly corrupt, yet unarguably has a qualified history in American national politics and has the backing of prominent progressive politicians, including senators Warren and Sanders. On the other hand, we have a loud-mouthed bully with no political experience, who doesn’t know Constitutional law, who would trample on free speech rights and freedom of the press, who openly discriminates against Muslims and Mexicans, who tacitly supports racial violence, and who asked Russia to help reveal Clinton’s lost emails.

Democratic unity, today, is not about rallying behind Clinton as a nominee, nor even about rallying around what she represents. It isn’t unity within the Democratic Party per se. It isn’t even about Clinton, or Warren, or Sanders, as Bernie has pointed out numerous times in his speeches, particularly on Monday night. It’s about Donald Trump, which is exactly what Trump wants because everything in his world must be about him. In his own words during his acceptance speech, he said of America’s problems, “I alone can fix [them].”

What Trump doesn’t know is that no president alone can “fix it” (and Trump “doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he’s uninterested in finding out“). The same rule applies to Clinton, yet she knows that. But the slight benefit of a Clinton presidency is that she has the support of progressives like Sanders and Warren and will be held accountable by them. They will influence her decisions, help frame progressive legislation, and approve Supreme Court picks that will overturn Citizens United. That’s what checks and balances are for. And Clinton, despite her massive shortcomings, is expected to defend our Constitutional rights by her progressive peers, and she would do well to repair her lack of public trust by delivering a strong progressive agenda.

Trump, however, is expected to trample on our rights by his jeering supporters and the foolish GOP politicians who endorsed him. His VP pick, Mike Pence, has signed legislation that legalized open discrimination against LGBTQ people. And the most frightening part is that the most ignorant of Trump supporters don’t even realize the danger he poses to their own liberties and freedoms as Americans. Trump would have control of the FBI, NSA, CIA, TSA, and every other executive branch agency (not to mention the military) that he could easily, under executive order, command to act out his hostilities.

And this is where I say what I’ve never wanted to say: a vote for the Democratic nominee is more important than voting my conscience, at least this time around. Of course, in terms of my personal values, I want to vote for Jill Stein, but I do not place voting for my own values above protecting what liberties and freedoms that we already have. To do so would be selfish and disrespectful to people who would face the worst treatment by a Trump presidency. While I admire Stein for tackling the two-party system, now is not the time to do so, and openly dividing Democrats under the #DemExit banner is counterproductive to the goal of keeping Trump from the presidency.

Yes, Rhode Island is deep blue and a vote for Stein may be safe here, but against the broad and insidious influence of Trump, we shouldn’t take any state for granted, especially with Clinton’s high negatives and recent drop in the polls. So, instead of voting Green or staying home on election day, we should consider following Bernie’s lead to vote Democrat in November. Bernie knows that this movement has now become about the long game. He has vowed to continue the Political Revolution, and the first step toward gaining ground is beating Donald Trump, because under a President Trump, there’s no chance to pass any progressive legislation. I have no doubt that he’d veto anything he wants without a second thought.

There’s nothing I’d love more than to see a Bernie Sanders presidency, or even Green Party viability. But second to that, I’ll take Trump getting blown out of the water on election day. To vote Democrat is not to just reject Trump as a nominee, but to reject the hateful and powerful zeitgeist he’s stirred up among a surprising number of voters in our country. That’s where our choice as voters goes beyond voting against a candidate. It’s about voting against what Trump has come to represent. Preventing the rightward march toward peril that Trump has inspired is absolutely imperative to continuing the experiment of American democracy, however flawed that experiment may be.

On a night that began with vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine being nominated by acclamation, Democrats – and one high-profile Independent – squared off against Trump and built a solid affirmative case for a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Aiming squarely at the image that Trump projected in his convention last week, Obama offered a scathing dissection.

“The reason he’ll lose it is because he’s selling the American people short,” he said. “We are not a fragile people, we’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.”

Obama spent a major part of his speech sharing his first-hand experience of Clinton’s strengths.

“For four years,” Obama said,  “I had a front-row seat to her intelligence, her judgment and her discipline. I came to realize that her unbelievable work ethic wasn’t for praise, it wasn’t for attention, that she was in this for everyone who needs a champion.”

In a moment that was both self-effacing and a play to his popularity with the Democratic base, Obama offered himself as a point of comparison. “I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman, not me, not Bill, nobody more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America.”

When his speech wrapped up, Hillary came out to join him on stage for a brief hug and wave. The Wells Fargo Arena, which was packed to the rafters, exploded in prolonged applause and cheers.

Members of the Rhode Island delegation were still smiling about it this morning. “It was a terrific night,” said Rhode Island Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed. “The speech that President Obama gave was phenomenal, and I can’t wait for this evening when we see the first woman officially accept the nomination to the Presidency of the United States.”

“It was exciting to meet vice-president (candidate) Kaine for the first time,” said RI Rep. Deb Ruggiero. “I love his social justice agenda. I think what President Obama did was galvanize everyone, whether you’re a Democrat or you’re an unaffiliated to realize that we need to elect Hillary Clinton as the next President. We cannot have someone like Donald Trump. As Mike Bloomberg said, ‘Hillary Clinton understands this is not reality television, this is reality.”

Kaine gave a solid, largely introductory speech that saw him slipping into a Donald Trump impersonation, asking the audience if they accepted all the promises the Republican made when he said, “Believe me.” “I’m going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Believe me.” “There’s nothing suspicious in my tax returns. Believe me.” “Does anybody here believe him?” The attendees in the Wells Fargo Center thundered, “No!”

A high point of the evening, for many, was Vice President Joe Biden’s speech. In a fiery address that played to his middle-class sensibilities, Biden offered a blunt critique of Trump’s so-called populism.

Said Biden, “His cynicism and undoubtedly his lack of empathy and compassion can be summed up in that phrase he is most proud of making famous: “You’re fired.” I’m not joking. Think about that. Think about that. Think about everything you learned as a child. No matter where you were raised, how can there be pleasure in saying, “You’re fired.” He is trying to tell us he cares about the middle class. Give me a break. That is a bunch of malarkey.”

There were more pointed critiques. Former candidate Martin O’Malley chided the Republicans: “Anger never fed a hungry child.” Retired Rear Admiral John Hutson got in the first dig over Trump’s call for Russian hackers to try to uncover additional Clinton e-mails. “That’s not law and order, that’s criminal intent.”

Independent Mike Bloomberg, who made it clear that he was not there to endorse the Democratic platform, nonetheless endorsed Hillary and, in no uncertain terms, drew a sharp distinction between his own status and that of the Republican nominee. “I’ve built a business and I didn’t start it with a million-dollar check from my father.”

At the roll call vote in Philadelphia this evening, the Democratic National Convention formally nominated Hillary Rodham Clinton as their candidate for president. The votes of Rhode Island’s 32 delegates were announced by Speaker of the House Nick Mattielo, who, in the tradition of nominating speeches, took the opportunity to sing the praises of the state.

“Rhode Island is the proud home of the great Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressmen David Cicilline and James Langevin,” said Mattielo. “Home of outstanding beaches and coastlines, some of the best in the world. Great companies such as CVS, Textron, Hasbro, and now GE. A state that has recently proudly elected the first female governor, Gina Raimondo. The smallest state in the union with one of the biggest hearts. Home of the best restaurants in the country, great quality of life, great people. Rhode Island proudly casts 13 votes for Senator Bernie Sanders, and 19 votes for the next President of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

When the roll call vote concluded, attendees in the Wells Fargo Center went into a prolonged celebration, cheering and waving Hillary placards.

“It was so exciting to be in this convention hall,” Langevin said, “When it became official that Hillary Clinton is the first woman to be the Democratic nominee, of any major party, for President of the United States. I’m glad it’s under the Democratic banner. I’m so proud to be a long-time supporter of Hillary Clinton, and I look forward to working so hard for her throughout the election cycle.”

Democratic Party Chair Joe McNamara echoed those sentiments.

“It was great to see the delegation come together and a tremendous experience,” he said. “I’m very proud of every single member of our delegation. The speaker did a great job promoting the positive attributes of Rhode Island versus the negative speech that happened last week in Cleveland, Ohio. He got the coastline, he got our corporations, he got GE moving in — it’s all about jobs and the economy and quality of life, and I think it came across very well.”

With Sanders organizers fanning out to all the convention hotels to collect delegate signatures supporting a roll-call vote, there was reaction from both the Clinton camp and among local delegates at their daily breakfast meeting this morning.

“We anticipate there will be a roll call vote tomorrow night and that every vote will be counted,” said Brian Fallon, Hilary For America’s national press secretary, at a media briefing this morning. “We’re happy to have it. It is exactly in keeping with our philosophy that every vote should count and that means every delegate being counted on the floor of the convention.”

At the Rhode Island delegation breakfast this morning, a volunteer from Pennsylvania was circulating among the tables collecting some of the required 600 delegate names. “It’s so that there can be a roll call vote, so people can actually say if they’re for Bernie Sanders” said Lauren Niedel, a Sanders delegate and one of the leaders of the Sanders movement in Rhode Island.

“No one would ever ask them not to,” said RI Democratic Party chair Joe McNamara. “But I think the important takeaway is the inclusion of those Democratic ideas and ideals that Sen. Sanders promoted in his campaign into the platform. We can see and hear the party uniting behind Secretary Clinton.”

John Hamilton, Sanders delegate and committee co-chair, acknowledged the direction that the floor vote seemed likely to head. “I don’t think there is going to be a second ballot. I don’t see it happening.”

Also at the breakfast, McNamara reported on their walk-through of the hall. “We checked out the Wells Fargo Center yesterday, and Rhode Island is positioned exactly where we should be, in the middle of the convention hall, slightly elevated above the rest on the floor, approximately 220 feet from the podium.”

Speaking to an RI Future reporter, McNamara praised the efforts of Aaron Regunberg in representing Rhode Island on the Rules Committee and helping to work out the Unity Commission compromise on superdelegates.

“To have a young, talented state representative like Rep. Regunberg on board gives a great deal of credibility to that,” he said. “I think everyone agrees that there has to be some adjustment in that process.”

McNamara called Regunberg “A great asset and a great role model for millennials.”

In a not-so-subtle dig at Brandon Bell’s remarks at last week’s Republican Convention, McNamara reported that “Speaker Mattielo will have a positive message tomorrow when he reports the votes, and we’re looking forward to a great convention.”

[Edit: 5pm: This story has been updated with additional information and a statement from the Secretary of State.]

When Rhode Island Board of elections chose to open only 144 of the state’s 419 polling stations for the April 26 primary, some cried foul. The move was seen by some as an attempt to stifle voters who might turn out for Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton. (On the Republican side, a Donald Trump victory was never in question.) RI Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Platform Committee, was cast as a political insider working for the Clinton campaign, though all polling locations were and are determined by local municipalities and the RI Board of Elections.

With the release of a giant crop of leaked DNC emails from Wikileaks, Gorbea appears to be exonerated from the charge of electioneering. However, the emails do seem to indicate that operatives within the Democratic National Committee were interfering in the election on a national level, placing more than a thumb on the scales in Clinton’s favor, even as they attempted to manage the public’s perception of their interference. Favoring one candidate over another is a violation of DNC rules.

The Wikileak emails show that ahead of Bernie Sanders’ big win in the Rhode Island primary, highly placed operatives in the Democratic National Committee were worried about the optics of the RI Board of Election’s decision to not open more than a third of the polling places, mistakenly believing that Gorbea was the one who made the decision.

On April 25 DNC Deputy Communications Director Eric Walker wrote to his boss, Luis Miranda, “Bernie leads Hillary by 4 in the latest poll. If [Clinton] outperforms this polling, the Bernie camp will go nuts and allege misconduct. They’ll probably complain regardless, actually. We might want to get out in front of this one with an inquiry to [Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo], even though she’s one of ours.”

By “one of ours” let’s assume Walker simply meant, “a Democratic governor”.

The next day was April 26, the day of the actual primary. Having been informed by DNC Northeast Regional Political Director Erin Wilson that, “We’ve got a pretty close relationship with Nellie,” Walker suggested contacting Gorbea directly.

“Was thinking a letter so that if press asks us about it, we can show we are responsive and active,” wrote Walker, “If we’re crying foul in AZ, we might need to do the same – at least nominally – in RI so we don’t look like hypocrites.”

This prompted DNC National Political Director Raul Alvillar to write, “I am fine with that. Before we do that we should talk to [Gorbea] to get all of the details.”

Walker responded, “I would like to be on this call, but first, I don’t think we even need a statement. We just need something to cover ourselves.

“I think when we start getting inquiries, if we have a letter to the [Secretary of State] that we can point to, it will show that we are engaged and that we don’t just pipe up when it’s a Republican administration closing poll locations.

“We can make the point to reporters individually off the record that it’s not apples and oranges: Arizona more serious because the state was covered under [Voting Rights Act] and has had a history of problems – Rhode Island doesn’t have those same historical issues.”

The primary in Rhode Island was in full swing just before 1pm when Erin Wilson came back with more information. “[Pratt Wiley, DNC National Director of Voter Protection] and I were reminded that in RI, the Secretary of State doesn’t manage elections, but they’re run by the Board of Elections that are appointed by the Governor. Apparently the number of polling locations they’ve opened are consistent with the numbers opened in 2008 and 2012, and they’ve also increased the number of poll workers, ballots and booths to accommodate any unexpected surges. For example they’re telling us that they printed 300K ballots for an expected turnout of 180K. Again, these decisions are made by the Board of Elections.

“The Secretary has been traveling to polling locations all morning/afternoon and they haven’t seen any issues. Apparently the longest wait they’re seeing is 25 minutes.

“So, if we do write a letter, it would need to be to the Board of Elections. I’d be a little cautious about pulling the trigger on it too soon. Can we give some of this info on background to show we’ve made inquiries to the state if we start getting calls and then punt it back to RI?”

Eric Walker, now having been in contact with Gorbea, writes, “To be clear – no inquiries yet, but RNC will be pushing it.

“Pratt just swung by my desk – [Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea is] ready to go on record with these points defending their approach, which is good.

“I think that if DNC press office gets inquiries about hypocrisy between AZ / RI then we can direct them to RI [Secretary of State] comment, and explain on background that it’s not as dire as AZ and that RI doesn’t have the same VRA baggage.”

The final email on Wikileaks regarding the issue came from DNC National Political Director Raul Alvillar, who wrote, “Perfect. This is good.”

Of course, the entire issue of whether or not the Board of Elections declined to open more polling stations to favor Clinton in the primary went away when Sanders clobbered Clinton, taking 55 percent of the vote. This upset caught local machine Democrats completely off guard and surprised national pundits.

From reading the emails, it seems clear that Gorbea answered concerns from the DNC and coordinated a response to criticisms of the Board of Election’s decision as to the number of polls to open, but no evidence of outright collusion for the purpose of electioneering can be seen in them.

According to Nicole Lagace, Senior Advisor and Communications Director to the Secretary of State, “The DNC reached out to Secretary Gorbea on April 26 to inquire about the decreased number of polling locations in Rhode Island for the Presidential primary. We explained that we do not oversee polling locations and that was the end of that correspondence.”

[Andrew Stewart contributed to this reporting.]

CHARLOTTE, NC –– President Barack Obama, in a crisp, straight-forward speech at the Democratic National Convention last night, laid out the central choice embodied in his re-election campaign.

“Over the next few years,” said the president, “big decisions will be made in Washington, on jobs and the economy; taxes and deficits; energy and education; war and peace – decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children’s lives for decades to come. On every issue, the choice you face won’t be just between two candidates or two parties. It will be a choice between two different paths for America.  A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.”

Obama’s speech did not have the rhetorical flash of former President Bill Clinton, or the moving narrative of First Lady Michelle Obama, or the fire-in-the-belly grit of Vice President Joe Biden. But it did something else, something quite substantial, in knitting together all the themes we had heard — and for those in the hall, that was something like 15 hours of speeches across three days — crystallizing the complex and ramified into the simple logic of decision-making.

In a word, the speech was presidential. Because while we do expect our presidents to have rhetorical flash (“Yes our road is longer – but we travel it together.  We don’t turn back.  We leave no one behind.”) and self-revelatory (“I began my career helping people in the shadow of a shuttered steel mill, at a time when too many good jobs were starting to move overseas.”) and even with a bit of grit (“”Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!”), at the end of the day, we know that the person in the Oval Office needs to have, in addition to those necessary-but-not-sufficient skills, a powerful ability to synthesize.

We need a president who can look out across the pressing challenges, the spectrum of issues, the diversity of voices — and anyone who attended to the full content of previous 15 hours could not miss their range and import — and, guided by their values, develop a vision and manage a path forward. It is an act of synthesis, not brute-force reduction to binary choices so painfully on display in Tampa.

In an election, this is of necessity reduced to a single decision point, a “go-no-go” decision (like the one pointedly evoked multiple times during the convention. You know the one I mean.)

And in perhaps the boldest rhetorical move, Obama turned this entire process inside out to show us how implicated we, the voters are: “So you see, the election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens – you were the change.”

It was a brilliant way to make his case. “As I stand here tonight,” Obama said, “I have never been more hopeful about America. Not because I think I have all the answers. Not because I’m naïve about the magnitude of our challenges. I’m hopeful because of you.”

Because if you had listened, really listened to what speaker after speaker testified to in Charlotte, and you had followed the logic of Obama’s framing (Sandra Fluke said it best: “Six months from now, you’re going to be living in one of these futures.”), and if you were the kind of person that the President thought you were — the kind of person you hope, in your best moments, to be — then you had to rise above the cynicism or “other voices will fill the void.”

Brilliant.

CHARLOTTE, NC –– The Rhode Island delegation was buzzing this morning over last night’s speeches and events at the Democratic National Convention, and they had a surprise visitor when Gov. Lincoln Chafee stopped by their breakfast.

“We may have our differences back home,” Chafee told the delegates, “But here, we’re all united to support the re-election of Barack Obama”

From inside the hall, last night, probably not visible on tv,  the audience response seemed a bit muted when Chafee started off by talking about being a former Republican. But it was evident that the audience warmed up to him almost immediately, and by the end, he got an enthusiastic round of applause.

Asked how he felt the speech went, Chafee  told RI Future he was happy to have the opportunity.  “Those were some points that I wanted to share with Americans…strong feelings that I’ve had since my time in the Senate.”

But although it was his speech, Chafee was clear that his main mission was supporting the President. “I know conventions, the point is to promote the candidate; I wanted to make sure I did that.”

In addition to a lot of positive words about our our local favorite, delegates were also delighted by the rest of last night’s lineup.

Rep. Frank Ferri thought the whole evening was powerful.  “It was great to hear some positive messages,” he said. “Finally, let’s talk about what Obama has accomplished.”

Former gubernatorial candidate Myrth York particularly liked Cory Booker. “Cory was on fire,” she said. And she offered an observation about the picture offfered by the whole evening. “The party is young,” she said. “It has the look and feel of the future

Democratic National Committee member Frank Montanaro was especially moved by the video memorial to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.  “As far as I’m concerned,” he said. “that was worth the show.”

And, of course, there was praise all around for the job that First Lady Michelle Obama did. Speaker Gordon Fox perhaps summed it up best: “Any man who has the sense to marry that woman deserves to be President.”

He spoke about pride in country, love of the land, social responsibility and fiscal responsibility, and then said, “The values I have spoken of tonight aren’t Republican or Democratic values – they’re American values.”

You can read his speech here or watch it here.

Meanwhile over at the Salty Shrine, David Cicilline and Anthony Gemma had a much more substantive and subdued debate than they did last week. Gemma scored some points for not engaging in his smear campaign (talk about a low bar!) and he also finally addressed his phony following on Twitter and Facebook. He said his fake followers have nothing to do with his campaign. Not true: his social networking fraud has everything to do with his character, which he himself has made an issue.

Let’s all take a moment to enjoy the irony of WPRO hosting a more subdued and substantive debate than anyone, let alone WPRI, which offers some of the fairest political coverage in the state. The lack of a crowd was a giant factor in this, but so was the professionalism with which Bill Halberman handled last night’s debate.

Check out this really cool interactive graphic of the most common words being used at the DNC, and who is using them.

One of the most moving parts of the evening was a video tribute to Ted Kennedy … if you missed it you can watch it here.

It’s more expensive to run for a seat in the State House than one might think … or at least, in some races it is.

New affordable housing is coming to Southern Rhode Island – good news seeing how this is one of the areas of the state that suffers the most from economic inequality.

On this day in 1957, Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” was first published. Here’s what the New York Times review thought if it then.