A ‘new chapter’ with Harris: Barack and Michelle Obama electrify Democratic faithful

Barack and Michelle Obama declared America was ‘ready for President Kamala Harris’, as they lent their political heft to her campaign for the White House.

Former US president Barack Obama and his wife and former first lady Michelle Obama on stage at the Democratic National Convention. Picture: AFP

Former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have electrified the Democrat party faithful in Chicago, declaring America was ready for a ‘new chapter’ by electing its first black female president.

“America is ready for a new chapter, we are ready for President Kamala Harris and Kamala Harris is ready for the job,” the former president told a packed auditorium of 20,000 cheering Democrats at the party’s national convention in Chicago.

Speaking in his home town where he first made his name as a state then federal senator, the 44th president blasted Donald Trump as a “whining” old man who saw “power as nothing more than a means to his ends”, in contrast to a caring, compassionate Ms Harris who “won’t be focused on her problems, she’ll be focused on yours”.

Seeking to bestow on Harris the same energy that catapulted him into the White House in 2008, Mr Obama, 63, said Ms Harris would be a leader who would focus on the issues facing ordinary Americans, including basic freedoms like abortion rights, as the crowd chanted “yes, she can”.

“We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos – we have all seen that movie before and we know the sequel is always worse,” he said of Mr Trump, who in 2016 defeated the last woman to run for the White House, Hillary Clinton.

“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz believe in an America where ‘we the people’ includes everyone, because that’s the only way this American experiment works,” Mr Obama said, after mocking Mr Trump for his “obsession with crowd sizes”.

Mr Obama was generous in his praise for the President and his former vice-president Joe Biden, who he said had “put his ambition aside for the sake of the country” by stepping down.

“History will remember Joe Biden as a president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger,” Mr Obama said. “I am proud to call him my president, but even prouder to call him my friend,” he said, as the crowd started chanting “thank you Joe”.

The former first couple were lending their unrivalled star power and political heft to Ms Harris’s not yet one-month-old campaign for the White House after Mr Biden abandoned his campaign amid questions about his mental fitness on July 21.

“I’m feeling fired up and ready to go, even if I’m the only person stupid enough to speak right after Michelle Obama,” Mr Obama said after his wife delivered her own fiery speech to convention delegates moments earlier.

Former first lady Michelle Obama speaks on stage during the second day of the Democratic National Convention. Picture: Getty Images

Ms Obama, who once encouraged Democrats to ‘go high, when they go low’, unleashed on Mr Trump, casting him as the beneficiary of “the affirmative action of generational wealth”, attacking him for his birther lie about her husband, and pointedly asking: “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?”

“I am confident they will lead with compassion and inclusion and grace,” she said of Ms Harris and her running mate Mr Walz, whose far-left policy record has become a target of Republican attacks.

“America, hope is making a comeback,” Ms Obama declared, evoking her husband’s 2008 campaign theme of ‘hope and change’.

Ms Harris and the Obamas have been friends for 20 years and in 2007 Ms Harris, who was the then San Francisco district attorney, was among the first Democrats to endorse Mr Obama during his successful 2008 presidential campaign.

Democrat Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, and former Democratic Party presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, rounded out the second day of heavy-hitting speakers seeking to make the case to the nation for the Harris-Walz ticket.

Senator Schumer, who played a key role in persuading Mr Biden to quit the presidential race in favour of Ms Harris, warned Americans against “reliving the dark night of Trump’s American carnage”.

Illinois’s billionaire Governor JB Pritzker, who had thrown his hat in the ring to become Harris’s running mate, fired back at Mr Trump who dubbed him a “real loser” last week. “Take it from an actual billionaire — Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity,” he said.

Ms Harris, who is due to speak on Thursday (Friday AEST), the final night of the convention, and Mr Walz, who will speak on Wednesday (Thursday AEST), were campaigning in Milwaukee, where Republicans held their convention last month, as the Obamas spoke.

On giant TV screens Ms Harris’s opening remarks at the Fiserv Center in Milwaukee, precisely where assassination attempt-survivor Mr Trump wallowed in the adoration of Republicans only a few weeks ago, were beamed in live.

Former US president Barack Obama speaks on stage at the Democratic National Convention. Picture: Getty Images

Meanwhile, Mr Trump was campaigning in Michigan as part of a series of battleground campaign events timed to coincide with the DNC, where he promised to ‘make America safe again’ and blasted Ms Harris as the “ringleader” of a “Marxist attack on law enforcement”.

Day two of the four-day convention kicked off with more good polling news for Ms Harris, who has been consistently leading Mr Trump in national polls since she became the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate after Mr Biden abandoned his campaign.

She led Mr Trump 48 per cent to 44 per cent according to a national Morning Consult survey published earlier in the day, double the margin she enjoyed a week ago, reflecting a political honeymoon that has rattled Republicans, who until Ms Harris’s elevation were expecting to cruise to victory in November amid questions about the President’s age and mental acuity.

Earlier in the evening Ms Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff, a lawyer and incumbent second gentleman, was introduced by one of his two adult children from a previous marriage, charming delegates with the story of their first meeting and how they fell in love.

US second gentleman Douglas Emhoff charms the crowd on the second day of the Democratic National Convention. Picture: AFP

He praised his wife for “stepping up for all of us”, branding her a “joyful warrior”, in keeping with the Democrats’ emerging campaign theme centred around ‘joy’ that the party seeks to contrast with Mr Trump’s more doom-laden rhetoric.

“Here’s the thing about joyful warriors: they’re still warriors. And Kamala is as tough as it comes … Whenever she’s needed, however she’s needed, Kamala rises to the occasion.”

The roll call of left-wing celebrities in the heavily-policed United Centre included former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who in public remarks earlier in the day said it was a “real privilege to be able to witness this moment in time”.

“You could see from the room a number of international guests and I think in part that’s because of how important this election is, but also because it feels like a historic moment,” she told a meeting of Democrats on the sidelines of the convention.

Ms Harris’s rise in the polls has sent shockwaves through the US presidential race, prompting longshot presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Junior to consider dropping out of the race and join forces with Mr Trump, according to his vice-presidential running mate Nicole Shanahan.

Mr Kennedy was considering “walking away right now and joining forces with Donald Trump” she told US podcaster Impact Theory, conceding their campaign was “drawing votes” from the Trump campaign.

“We are taking a very serious look at making sure that the people that have corrupted our fair and free democracy do not end up in office in November,” she added, referring to the Democratic Party.