The last time Bill Clinton spoke at a Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he was selling a bridge.
Building one, actually. A “bridge to the 21st century.”
Think of it like an earlier Democratic version of “Infrastructure Week.”
"Four years from now, we begin a new century, full of enormous possibilities and new challenges," the incumbent Democratic president told nearly 5,000 delegates and alternates at the United Center.
"Let us resolve to build that bridge to the 21st century, to meet our challenges, protect our basic values and prepare our people for the future."
Of course, when Clinton made that speech on August 29, 1996, he had a few bridges lying ahead of himself to cross. Monica Lewinsky was already working as a White House intern, but the scandal over the presidential affair — and all the shame and late-night punchlines — was still well over a year in the future.
But a few clouds were already on the horizon. Like Kamala Harris this year, Clinton made a “surprise” appearance on the convention’s opening day in 1996, greeting delegates in a live video feed from Toledo, Ohio. But some of Clinton’s nomination hoopla was overshadowed by another sex scandal that surfaced as the convention opened and prompted the resignation of Clinton aide Dick Morris.
For the most part, though, the ’96 convention itself was a success for Clinton — and Chicago.
It helped Clinton win another term over dour 73-year-old Republican challenger Bob Dole — and, of course, a place in history as the second president to be impeached.
And it helped Mayor Richard M. Daley exorcise the ghosts still haunting the city’s convention history from his father’s 1968 debacle.
And as for that bridge? The Chicago Sun-Times featured Clinton’s pledge on the front page — and the newspaper’s cover wound up on T-shirts that quickly went on sale to departing delegates.
“America is on the right track to the 21st century,” Clinton told delegates.
