Hillary Clinton snapped a selfie with Drew Russo, who will be at the Democratic National Convention in Philly and filing reports for The Item.
BY THOMAS GRILLO
LYNN — On the heels of Donald Trump’s coronation in Cleveland, Hillary Clinton delegate Drew Russo is at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where he will be writing a diary for The Daily Item.
Russo, a Lynn resident and executive director of the Lynn Museum & Historical Society, has been a Clinton supporter since her first campaign for president in 2008 when she faced then Sen. Barack Obama.
This time around, Drew said, Clinton is even more qualified to be president.
“At this moment in our history, Hillary has the passion, the experience and the ability to make a phenomenal president of the United States,” he said.
Russo is one of 115 Bay State delegates attending the convention. Clinton narrowly defeated Bernie Sanders, 50.3 percent to 48.5 percent in the Democratic primary in Massachusetts. But Sanders won Essex County by 815 votes, beating Clinton with 66,494 votes to her 65,679.
While Russo acknowledged Clinton’s high unfavorability ratings and the fact that a majority of Americans are convinced she lied over the email controversy during her time as secretary of state, she’s still the best choice for president, he said.
“I look at the totality of the work she’s done as senator and secretary of state,” he said. “It comes down to the choice that we have front of us.”
Clinton will win the popular vote and the electoral college to become president, he said. But it won’t happen easily or if Clinton just runs a negative campaign.
“As Democrats, we can’t win this election on an anti-Trump message alone,” he said. “We have to make a positive case for Hillary Clinton. I don’t think either side can win this thing without offering a positive vision and they will do that.”
Russo may be one of the few delegates who has met Clinton and had a selfie taken with her. In April, he knocked on doors for her in Central Falls, Rhode Island and later attended a rally where they met.
“I asked if I could take a selfie and she said ‘sure’ and she took my phone,” he said. “I told her I was elected as delegate from Massachusetts and that it a real honor. She said how great that was and she thought the convention would be very interesting for all us. I spent 40 seconds talking her. She was engaged, she looked me in the eye and I could tell she was listening. It was one of the more engaging moments I’ve had in the campaign.”
For live updates from the convention, follow @DrewRusso781 and @itemlive.
Thomas Grillo can be reached at [email protected].
