Though her campaign theme was “stronger together,” slogan

Hillary Clinton strode into history books Thursday night with a call
for Americans to rally behind her. “Join us” was a refrain as she
moved toward the end of her speech — and toward what promises to
be a divisive campaign to become the nation’s first female President.

“I know that at a time when so much seems to be pulling us apart, it

can be hard to imagine how we’ll ever pull together,” she said. “But
I’m here to tell you tonight, progress is possible.”

The former Secretary of State became the Democratic nominee with

enormous advantages over her rival Donald Trump — a massive
campaign apparatus, deep pockets and an electoral map that favors
Democrats. But on the biggest night of her campaign, with the
nation’s television screens tuned in, she walked on stage dogged by
doubts and headwinds, with more than half the country saying they
had concerns about her trustworthiness.

Though her campaign theme was “stronger together,” the convention

hall was not united, with shouted protests from a few progressive
dissidents disrupting her speech at points. Protesters held signs
praising her rival Bernie Sanders, and a handful even pushed the
Green Party candidate. One sign read simply “Keep Your Promises,”
a reflection of the distrust that has dogged her through the campaign.

She tried to take all of these concerns straight on, praising Sanders at
the start of her address, embracing the party platform she had been
pressured by progressives to adopt, and admitting her shortfalls at
connecting in the past to voters. “Now, sometimes the people at this
podium are new to the national stage. As you know, I’m not one of
those people,” Clinton said. “The truth is, through all these years of
public service, the service part has always come easier to me than the
public part. I get it, that some people just don’t know what to make of
me.”

Read More: Transcript of Hillary Clinton’s Convention Speech

She did little to help answer that one. Instead, she offered a broad
vision of helping all Americans with her specific ideas of how to do it.
“It’s true. I sweat the details of policy,” she said. Moments later, she
contrasted that with Trump, whose positions are often hard to pin
down. “No wonder he doesn’t like talking about his plans,” she said,
before dryly adding, “You might have noticed, I love talking about
mine.”

She quoted Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Jackie Kennedy,

borrowed a lyric from the Broadway hit Hamilton and parroted
Ronald Reagan. But for much of the speech, she sought to define
herself not with her own story, but in opposition to her opponent. Of
Trump, she said he had shifted his party a long way from Reagan’s
slogan. “He wants to divide us — from the rest of the world, and from
each other,” she said. “He’s taken the Republican Party a long way
from Morning in America to Midnight in America.”

“Don’t believe anyone who says ‘I alone can fix it,’” Clinton warned.
“Those were Donald Trump’s words in Cleveland. They should set off
alarm bells.”

Read More: 5 Other Women Who Ran for President

For the better part of four nights, the speakers had taken their turns
hammering Trump as a self-serving huckster, an alleged billionaire
who is running for President only to make his brand bigger, and an
enemy to women, immigrants and workers. They also tried to
humanize a sometimes distant public figure with anecdotes about her
personal life and her behind-the-scenes political work.

Throughout the Democratic convention, friends and allies offered

anecdotes aimed at making Clinton seem more likable. Bill
Clinton told the story of how they first met from afar in the Yale Law
School library. Chelsea Clinton talked about her mother reading
her Goodnight Moon and taking her to Dinosaur National
Monument. Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told
the story of how Clinton and President Obama crashed a private
meeting of other world leaders. Senator Claire McCaskill said Clinton
phoned her after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

But the biggest lift was Clinton’s own speech. She kept working at it
all the way into Thursday. After making a surprise appearance with
Obama late Wednesday, she went back to her hotel to keep working
on the latest draft of the address. Aides were frustrated with her
insistence on specifics over rhetoric, details over drama, but it was
typical Clinton. “Why keep it simple like, ‘If you see something, say
something’ when ‘If you see something suspicious, please alert the
proper authorities’ is much better?” one aide joked.

She seemed to yield to advisers, and the speech had some memorable
one-liners, and some rhetoric that can be repurposed for the
speeches she gives every day. As usual, it was grounded in facts and
specifics.

Read More: In Two Clashing Conventions, a Clear Choice for the

Nation

Convention speeches are the rare opportunity for campaigns to have

the eyes of a nation on the candidates, traditionally uninterrupted
and on their own terms. Unlike the three upcoming debates, there
was no sparring partner on Thursday. Unlike TV interviews and press
conferences, there was no reporter raising uncomfortable topics. It
was simply Clinton speaking to her supporters in the overcrowded
hall and millions more watching at home that she hoped to persuade.

She walked a fine line, trying to maintain an optimistic tone and

arguing that, contra Trump, America is already great, while also
acknowledging the frustrations that fueled Sanders and Trump in the
primaries.

“Some of you are frustrated. Even furious. You’re right. It’s not yet
working the way it should,” she said.

Clinton’s convention closed with the traditional balloons and a song

blaring that they were stronger together and united. Her challenge,
over the next 102 days, will be to hammer home those themes that
her strategists amplified over the last four days: that Democrats are
the party of inclusion and the middle class, that government
programs can help lift Americans, that Clinton is the best prepared
presidential nominee in a generation. Starting with a weekend bus
tour through Pennsylvania and Ohio, Clinton and running mate Tim
Kaine will try to paper over the party divisions that left many
delegates in the hall sour on the Establishment.

To help build a unified party, Clinton mostly focused on the

alternative. “Imagine, if you will, image him in the Oval Office facing
a real crisis,” Clinton said. Then she added a line that was the most-
discussed moment on Twitter of the night: “A man you can bait with
a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”
Primary concerns

Here were the highlights: “A country where the economy works for
everyone, not just those at the top” (a line I heard three different
Clinton operatives offer word for word at panels and briefings before
the speech). … “When there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit.”… “My
primary mission as president will be to create more opportunity and
more good jobs with rising wages right here in the United States”
(this was a line borrowed from no less than ... Michael Dukakis). In
its rhetoric, it was a model of what not to do in so consequential a
speech.

Stealing quotation
Here were the highlights: “A country where the economy works for
everyone, not just those at the top” (a line I heard three different
Clinton operatives offer word for word at panels and briefings before
the speech). … “When there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit.”… “My
primary mission as president will be to create more opportunity and
more good jobs with rising wages right here in the United States”
(this was a line borrowed from no less than ... Michael Dukakis). In
its rhetoric, it was a model of what not to do in so consequential a
speech.

No theme

Above all else, a speech must contain a central theme, one that
provides a frame of reference for the message. Every line of
JFK’s 1961 inaugural sets the table for “ask not what your
country can do for you.” Every line of Martin Luther King’s
famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial drives toward the
affirmation that “I have a dream.” Here, as Churchill said of
the pudding, it had no theme.