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CHICAGO —Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted his party's nomination for vice president Wednesday night, using his Democratic National Convention address to thank the packed arena for "bringing the joy" to an election transformed by the elevation of his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
"We're all here tonight for one beautiful, simple, reason: We love this country," Walz said as thousands of delegates hoisted vertical placards reading "Coach Walz" in red, white and blue.
Walz described his upbringing in Nebraska and teaching and coaching football in Minnesota and told the crowd, "Thank you for bringing the joy to this fight."
"While other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours," he said. In a dig at his Republican counterpart, JD Vance, he added, "I had 24 kids in my high school class, and none of them went to Yale."
When Walz talked about the difficulty conceiving his daughter, Hope, she made a heart with her hands and held it over her chest. His son, Gus, wept watching his dad speak and at least once shouted, "That's my dad!"
"I haven't given a lot of speeches like this, but I've given a lot of pep talks," Walz said.
Democrats gathered at Chicago's United Center are hoping to build on the momentum Harris has brought since taking over the top of the party's presidential ticket last month. They want to harness the Democratic exuberance that followed President Joe Biden stepping aside while also making clear to their supporters that they face a fierce battle with former President Donald Trump.
Many Americans had never heard of Walz until Harris made him her running mate. In his first weeks of campaigning, he's charmed supporters with his background and helped to balance Harris' coastal background as a cultural representative of Midwestern states whose voters she needs this fall.
But Walz also has faced scrutiny, including questions about embellishing his background. His wife this week clarified that she did not undergo in vitro fertilization, as Walz has repeatedly claimed, but used other fertility treatments. Republicans also have criticized Walz for a 2018 comment he made about carrying weapons in war. Though he served in the National Guard for 24 years, he did not deploy to a war zone.
Benjamin C. Ingman, one of Walz's old high school students, introduced the man many speakers - and Harris at times - have referred to as "Coach Walz." At Ingman's prompting, many of Walz's former players decked out in their red and white jerseys took the stage to help introduce him.
The Bill and Oprah show
Walz's speech followed former President Bill Clinton who returned to a place he knows well, the Democratic National Convention stage, to denounce Donald Trump as selfish and praise Kamala Harris as focused on the needs of Americans - firing up his party with his trademark off-the-cuff flourishes.
Clinton was meant to add heft to a third DNC night headlined by vice presidential nominee Tim Walz 's introduction to a national audience.
"We've got a pretty clear choice it seems to me. Kamala Harris, for the people. And the other guy who has proved, even more than the first go-around, that he's about me, myself and I," Clinton said.
The nation's 42nd president and a veteran of his party's political convention going back decades, Clinton was once declared the "secretary of explaining stuff" by Barack Obama, whose reelection bid in 2012 was bolstered by a Clinton stemwinder at that year's DNC.
Now 78 - the same age as Trump - Clinton's delivery was sometimes halting, his movements slower and he mispronounced Harris' first name twice. His left hand often shook when he wasn't using it to grip the lectern.
Still, he delivered several memorable, homespun pronouncements including asking. "What does her opponent do with his voice? He mostly talks about himself. So the next time you hear him, don't count the lies, count the I's."
Oprah Winfrey, who long hosted her signature TV talk show from Chicago, picked up on one of Democrats' favorite themes of late, scoffing at Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance having once derided "childless cat ladies" as he argued that Americans should be having more children.
Winfrey said that if a burning house belonged to a "childless cat lady," neighbors would still help and "try to get that cat out, too."
"We are beyond ridiculous tweets and lies and foolery," she said of Trump, before referencing a recent comment he made to supporters about only having to vote once more - for him - and never again.
"You're looking at a registered independent who's proud to vote again and again and again, because that's what Americans do," she said. "Voting is the best of America."
A focus on 'freedoms'
The night's theme was "a fight for our freedoms," with the programming focusing on abortion access and other rights that Democrats want to center in their campaign against Trump. Speaker after speaker argued that their party wants to defend freedoms while Republicans want to take them away.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis used a prop that has become a convention staple, an oversized book meant to represent the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, a sweeping set of goals to shrink government and push it to the right, if Trump wins. Polis even ripped a page from the ceremonial volume and said he was going to keep it and show it to undecided voters.
The former president has distanced himself from Project 2025, but its key authors include his former top advisers. His running mate, JD Vance, wrote the foreword for the Heritage Foundation CEO's new book.
Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the story of a woman in her state, which enacted new abortion restrictions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, who was forced to carry to term a child with a fatal illness, only to watch the newborn die just hours after birth.
Dana Nessel, Michigan's attorney general and an openly gay woman, declared, "I got a message for the Republicans and the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay hand."
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi spoke about the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He chaired a congressional committee that investigated the mob overrunning the Capitol, saying, "They wanted to stop the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history."
"Thank God they failed," Thompson said.
Trump bashed the convention as a "charade" and noted the fact that he has been a frequent topic of conversation. He also singled out his predecessor, Obama, for a highly critical convention speech Tuesday night, saying Obama had been "nasty."
A recognition of the Oct. 7 hostages
Democrats recognized the hostages still being held by Hamas after its October 7 attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed. Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin brought some in the arena to tears as they paid tribute to their son Hersh, who was abducted in the attack.
Freeing hostages "is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue," Jon Goldberg-Polin said, adding that "in a competition of pain there are no winners."
The Israel-Hamas war has split the Democratic base, with pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating outside the United Center and several speakers this week acknowledging civilian deaths in the Israeli offensive in Gaza. More than 40,000 people have died in Gaza, according to local health authorities.