Hillary Clinton’s moment
Our view: Democratic nominee must now outline an uplifting agenda
Hillary Clinton faces the biggest test of her political career tonight as she accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination to be the nation’s next president. She could use that platform to attack her opponent, as Donald Trump did to her at last week’s Republican National Convention. She could spend her time appealing to supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders. Or she might even want to re-introduce herself to America and clean the slate of the caricature of her as scheming Lady Macbeth dabbling in the dark arts of polling and media manipulation.
But to update a political philosophy her husband made popular, there’s also a fourth way. What the former secretary of state needs to do tonight is offer a hopeful, uplifting vision of a country that is not only in stark contrast to the gloom-and-doom of Mr. Trump’s false imagery but one that also appeals our better natures. Americans don’t want to think of their country as under siege by violent crime (which it isn’t), beset by intractable problems or in need of a strongman leader to sweep away such inconveniences as civil rights, to round up 11 million undocumented residents or to tilt the tax code to the benefit of the rich.
That may seem like a tall order, but first lady Michelle Obama already set the template on the first day of the Democratic National Convention when she spoke of how the United States was already “great” and that voters needed to elect a serious, steady and purposeful president who would help shape the next generation. It was a positive vision, an idealistic vision, a quintessentially American vision that deserves to be defended, as the first lady observed, by going high even when its critics go low.
That’s not to suggest Ms. Clinton should ignore Senator Sanders’ agenda, pay no heed to the antics of the Republican nominee and the danger he represents or fail to share her personal story, as former President Bill Clinton did with such obvious pride and affection on Day 2. But what voters want — and always have sought whether in times of heightened conflict or abundant prosperity — is leadership that appeals to their better natures. And if anyone should understand this it should be Ms. Clinton whoin the year of the political outsider has accomplished something that no American, Democrat or Republican, has ever done: In accepting the nomination, she will have broken the penultimate glass ceiling as the first woman to be the presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party.
Those who view Ms. Clinton as the consummate insider, as a pragmatic and passionless centrist or mere beneficiary of her husband’s ascendant political career, ignore the gender discrimination and outright misogyny that have limited the role of women in leadership since long before the founding of the nation. Neither her 40-year-long marriage nor the evident favoritism displayed in the hacked emails from Democratic National Committee staff allowed Ms. Clinton to overcome generations of inequality. Her lifelong efforts on behalf of children, for women and for her constituents whether in Little Rock, the White House, the U.S. Senate or the State Department provided her that opportunity.
Like Barack Obama eight years ago, Ms. Clinton is blazing a trail that all Americans should embrace — proving that a girl born in the U.S. has just as much opportunity to thrive and succeed as her brother. That’s not the totality of the message the candidate needs to present tonight, but it is symbolic of the story of America’s promise she needs to convey. Mr. Trump wants to convince the American public that only he can solve the nation’s problems. Ms. Clinton needs to convey the truth that the power to create a more perfect union resides within each of us.
As a Republican who spent some time in Ms. Clinton’s native Illinois observed seven score and 13 years ago, “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” The stakes could scarcely be higher — not just control of the political agenda for the next four years but perhaps the soul of the republic as well.