Democratic National Convention day two: Clinton wins nomination

BILL Clinton has opened up about his marriage in a speech designed to help sell his wife Hillary to the voters of middle America.

BILL Clinton labelled his wife Hillary Clinton the “best darn changemaker” he’d ever met, recounting how he tried three times to get her to marry him in a speech designed to use his popularity to help sell his wife to middle America.

Hillary Clinton made history today when she formally received the nomination for president, becoming the first woman every elevated by a major party to contest the White House. Former US president Bill Clinton swept from the personal to the political in his keynote endorsement, occasionally veering off course from his teleprompter as he told of the girl with big blonde hair and glasses he met in the spring of 1971 and went on to detail his wife’s life as a public servant dedicated to making lives better. Mr Clinton’s tale of their 40-year personal and political partnership was designed to be a story of the “real Hillary” — the woman who had made a career pursing social justice and fighting for children, coalminers and the disabled, and who had been a stand up mother and wife. “She’s the best darn changemaker I ever met in my entire life,” Mr Clinton said. “This woman has never been satisfied with the status quo on anything. She always wants to move the ball forward. That’s just who she is.” Republicans responded by tweeting what they claimed was the “real Clinton timeline”, including the raft of scandals that have embroiled the pair over time, ranging from the Monica Lewinsky affair to more recent crises like Ms Clinton’s email server. It comes at a crucial time when a series of national polls have put Mr Trump ahead of Ms Clinton on the back of his own convention last week. Like Michelle Obama on Monday night, Mr Clinton attacked Mr Trump without naming him. The night ended with Ms Clinton being beamed into the convention on a live feed from New York. Tradition dictates that the nominee doesn’t speak on stage until formally accepting the nomination on the final night. Singer Alicia Keys played the song “Superwoman”, while images of all of America’s male presidents flashed on the screen, before Ms Clinton appeared on the live feed. “I can’t believe that we’ve just put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling tonight,” she said. Speaking directly to young American women, she said: “I may become the first woman president but one of you is next.” Ms Clinton for the second night in a row engaged celebrity line up to bash Mr Trump. Meryl Streep conjured stories of great female firsts in history - such as Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart - saying that to be the first female anything takes “grit and grace”. “Hillary will be the first to serve with grit and grace but she won’t be the last,” Ms Streep said. TV stars Lena Dunham and America Ferrera launched an attack on Mr Trump for stirring up hate in America. “Donald Trump is not making America great again, he is making America hate again,” Ms Ferrera said. They accused him of Islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia and “systemic racism”. Ms Dunham joked that on Mr Trump’s scale of rating women’s figures, she’d be “a two”, and Ms Ferrera — - a daughter of immigrants — hypothesised he’d think she was a rapist. Ms Clinton was also supported by black women who had lost their black children to gun violence. They spoke of how Clinton had once scheduled a 30-minute meeting with them, but stayed for two hours. They called themselves a “club of heartbroken mothers” and said they saw her compassion as a mother, not simply a politician. READ OUR EARLIER LIVE COVERAGE BELOW

Originally published as Democratic National Convention day two: Clinton wins nomination

Live Updates