Hillary Clinton names Sen. Tim Kaine as running mate
TAMPA — Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton used a swing across Florida on Friday to listen to members of a community stunned by the mass shooting at an Orlando gay club and to rally supporters at the State Fairgrounds here.
“I’ve never heard of someone who wants to be an American leader claiming to be all we need,” Clinton told the Tampa crowd in one of her many shots fired at GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s speech accepting his party's nomination. “As I recall we had a revolution to make sure we didn’t have someone who said ‘I can fix it alone.’”
Clinton continues her visit to Florida on Saturday with a stop in Miami, where she is expected to introduce Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate. Clinton announced her pick Friday night after her stops in Orlando and Tampa.
Jim Begg and his 16-year-old son, Alex, traveled from Sarasota to Tampa to see Clinton on Friday.
“It was insightful,” Begg said after her appearance. “I’m glad she stopped in Orlando and was able to see the situation there, because people don’t need to be divided right now they need to be brought together. I want my son to see and understand the benefits of a political system that can actually work if people care for each other.”
Alex said he’s been pulling for Clinton throughout the primaries.
“She’s just seemed like the logical choice. I’m not a hippy,” he said, surveying the crowd. “But this is love right here.”
Democrats will unite around Clinton, said Alex Espinosa of Tampa, who came to the rally sporting a Bernie Sanders T-shit.
Espinosa, who immigrated to Florida from Colombia, said to him the choice between Clinton and Trump is clear.
“Hillary is a great candidate,” he said. “It’s not really a lesser-of-two-evils kind of thing or anything like that. She is a good decent candidate, who is coming around on college tuition, trade agreements and voter registration for everyone. She is certainly not a fear mongerer.”
In Orlando hours earlier, Clinton gathered with seven people directly impacted by the June 12 mass shooting at The Pulse nightclub that killed 49 people.
From a small table in the Holden Heights Community Center, less than two miles from the site of the Pulse club where a self-proclaimed jihadist Omar Mateen killed the club goers, Clinton heard calls for tighter gun controls, national unity and higher wages.
Clinton said the Pulse attack provided a grim assessment of equality in the United States.
“Among other things, it means it’s still dangerous to be LGBT in America,” Clinton said. “I think it’s an unfortunate fact, but it’s one that needs to be said."
Clinton later said, “But the reason why I’m here is to listen to all of you."
Live Updates: Hillary Clinton Rally in Tampa
Clinton, who is expected to receive the Democratic nomination during the party’s convention next week in Philadelphia, said little during the roundtable discussion. She only took notes, nodded her head and listened.
The discussion was moderated by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who said his city tried to define itself by its reaction to the shooting. Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan gave Clinton an emotional account of the days afterward. The social conflict between people who come from different religious or cultural backgrounds need to be addressed, Sheehan said.
“I don’t have children, but when something like that happens, it’s like it’s in your living room and those are your 49 children,” Sheehan said, later adding, “We need to stop defining this country by ethnic beliefs and religion.”
Sheehan handed off the discussion to Imam Muhammad Musri, who said the attack impacted Orlando’s Islamic community like everyone else.
Orlando police Cap. Mark Canty said he was called to Pulse on the morning of the shooting as the commander of the agency’s SWAT team. He was impressed by the unity the city had assumed in the weeks after that day, even after the backlash of two officer-involved shootings in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and St. Paul, Minnesota that drew national outrage.
“Even after those events, we had a demonstration here and people were still coming up to us and giving us hugs,” Canty said. “Orlando is different that way.”
Carlos Guillermo Smith, who is the governmental affairs director for gay-rights group Equality Florida and a candidate for state House, said he was frustrated that Congress has not banned high-power assault rifles similar to the weapon used by Mateen. Similar weapons were used in the 2012 mass shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
“The same gun used in what happened here was the same type of gun in Aurora and the same type of gun at Sandy Hook (elementary school),” Smith said. “I’m tired of hearing that this is just about mental illness.”
Equality Florida Development Officer Ida Eskamani, who is working on Smith’s campaign, tied the social and cultural rifts in the country to uneven wages. She said the country needs to adopt plans such as increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Terry DeCarlo, of the LGBT Center of Central Florida, told Clinton that many of the survivors still require assistance for counseling.
Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson left the community center and stopped by Pulse to see the large spread of flowers, notes and votive candles that had been left in memorial to the people who were killed. Clinton spoke with Dyer and some Orlando firefighters who greeted her at the scene. She left her own bouquet of white flowers, climbed back into a sport utility vehicles and headed to Tampa for a rally that evening.
