Obama: ‘America is already great,’ vote Hillary

PHILADELPHIA — President Obama formally passed the torch to Hillary Clinton on Wednesday — but not before using it to try to burn down Donald Trump’s hopes of the White House and to light a fire under any Democratic voters inclined to stay home in November.

“America is already great, America is already strong,” Obama told rowdy, sign-waving party activists packed into the Wells Fargo Center here, cheering his direct assault on the Republican nominee’s signature slogan.

“And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump,” he said, to commingled hurrahs and laughter.

The brash entrepreneur “is not actually offering any real solutions,” Obama contended. “He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear. He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election.”

At one point, he veered away from prepared remarks to knock Trump’s embrace of birtherism, the disproven, racism-fueled conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore an illegitimate president.

“My grandparents, they came from the heartland; their ancestors began settling there about 200 years ago,” he said. “I don’t know if they had their birth certificates, but they were there!”

And Obama promised that Clinton would “finish the job” of defeating the so-called Islamic State, while protecting and advancing his consequential and controversial legacy on issues like health care reform, reining in Wall Street and advancing gay rights.

“I’m here to tell you that yes, we’ve still got more work to do,” he said. “That work involves a big choice this November.”

Amid concerns among some Democrats that disaffected Bernie Sanders supporters might stay home, forfeiting the presidency to Trump, Obama had a message for those whose allegiance is still to the progressive Vermont senator’s movement.

“If you’re serious about our democracy, you can’t afford to stay home just because she might not align with you on every issue,” he warned. “We’re going to carry Hillary to victory this fall, because that’s what the moment demands.”

At the end of his remarks, Clinton emerged unannounced from backstage, beaming, and the two shared a long bear hug before patrolling the stage together, waving to the crowd.

On Twitter, Trump dismissed the president’s speech. “Our country does not feel ‘great already’ to the millions of wonderful people living in poverty, violence and despair,” he wrote. Democrats countered that crime is down to historically low levels, and that Obama inherited the worst recession in a century.

At the Republican National Committee, Chairman Reince Priebus tried to harness the strong antiestablishment currents roiling the 2016 campaign — and potentially making it even harder than it has been in modern times for a two-term president to see a chosen successor into the Oval Office.

“President Obama was elected to the White House with voters demanding change, and fittingly, that is how he will leave,” Priebus said.

If first lady Michelle Obama’s speech on Monday meant to validate Clinton’s election in historic terms, and Bill Clinton’s remarks on Tuesday aimed to vouch for her in deeply personal terms, the sitting president preached that his former secretary of state is fit to succeed him — and Trump is not.

“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,” he said.

Obama hit Trump on the economy, voters’ No. 1 issue; national security, typically a strong second; and Trump’s preparedness and honesty.

“The Donald is not really a plans guy. He’s not really a facts guy, either,” Obama mocked.

To voters struggling in an uncertain economy, the president argued that Trump was not an authentic savior.

“Does anyone really believe that a guy who’s spent his 70 years on this earth showing no regard for working people is suddenly going to be your champion? Your voice?” he said.

On national security, Obama said, Trump wrongly “suggests America is weak.”

“He cozies up to Putin, praises Saddam Hussein, tells our NATO allies that stood by our side after 9/11 that they have to pay up if they want our protection,” Obama said. “Well, America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. We bear our burdens: that’s one reason why almost every country on earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago, when I took office.”

Unsurprisingly, despite his stay-the-course message, Obama skipped over parts of his legacy that might have doused the enthusiasm in the hall. Notably, he did not mention the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which Clinton helped craft but turned against under pressure from Sanders. And he did not mention Syria, where some 400,000 people have died on his watch, or Libya, where the failure to plan for the aftermath of a military intervention Clinton championed left a vacuum in which the Islamic State has found a haven.

His remarks also implicitly acknowledged Clinton’s challenges. Voters say they mistrust her. And she faces the difficult task of knitting together the coalition that twice swept the nation’s first black president into office.

Democrats say the party will unite behind its champions, Obama chief among them, leading Vice President Joe Biden and other party leaders. On Wednesday, the president used what may be his final opportunity as president to command the attention of millions of Americans in primetime to push that unity effort.

“Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me: I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me,” he said near the emotional climax of his speech. “I’m asking you to join me, to reject cynicism and reject fear, and to summon what is best in us; to elect Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States.”