TAMPA — With less than two week until Election Day, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton touted her platform of inclusion here Wednesday, and slammed GOP candidate Donald Trump for how he has waged his campaign.
“We have seen Donald Trump insult nearly every person in America, and I just find that so intolerable,” Clinton said to a crowd of supporters at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park.
Both candidates have swept through the Sunshine State in the past few days in as they seek to win this key presidential battleground. Trump appeared in Tampa Monday and followed with engagements in Orlando and Tallahassee. Clinton spoke in Coconut Creek on Tuesday and stopped in Lake Worth on Wednesday before addressing voters in Tampa.
Armed with Trump’s tax record and his statement in the third debate that he’d keep America in suspense over whether he’d accept the results of the election, she implored a few thousand supporters to show the world what democracy looks like.
“We’ve learned in this campaign that Donald Trump is the posterboy for everything that is wrong in this country,” Clinton said.
The harsh tone of this election was evident outside of the park as Trump supporters raised a puppet-like figure of Clinton complete with a Pinocchio nose. The Trump campaign, which has branded Clinton as a liar, has widely criticized the Democratic nominees for her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.
Inside the park, speakers such as Hillsborough County Property Appraiser Bob Henriquez attacked Trump’s character and the derogatory statements toward women that have surfaced from the presidential nominee in recent weeks. Trump has dismissed comments as “locker room” talk. Henriquez, who coached for 26 years, said no coach would allow that kind of vulgarity in the locker room.
“I’ve got news for you: We are great, and that’s why we’re going to work together to stop this insanity in the next couple weeks,” Henriquez said.
Joe Spain, 40, and William Rossow, 32, both of Tampa, cast their votes Wednesday morning before coming out to the rally. They’d covered themselves in Clinton’s campaign stickers and were ready to support the campaign in whatever way they could. Spain said he was encouraged by Clinton’s experience in foreign policy and her plan to get the economy on track, but he was also horrified by the idea of putting Trump and his demeanor into the White House.
“When you’re president of the United States, the most powerful person in the world, you can’t keep apologizing for things you said,” Spain said. “The first time you say something, it has to be spot on. You have to think before you speak, and he has not done that.”
Clinton and Trump have sparred relentlessly in the months leading up to the election, but Clinton urged voters to stick with her and her vision for the country. She wanted more than negativity driving her votes into the ballot box on Nov. 8.
“It’s not just what we’re against that should motivate you to go to the polls, it’s what we are for. … America’s best days should still be ahead of us,” she said.
Clinton plugged her plan to ease the college debt crisis and bolster trade programs in high schools. She cited climate change and flooding in Miami as a need to push forward with her clean energy agenda. She touted the crowd’s diversity in age, background and ethnicity, and cited her desire to reform but uphold the country’s tradition of immigration.
“Florida is paving the way for what our country will look like,” Clinton said. “We need to be lifting each other up.”