PHILADELPHIA — The charisma-challenged candidate had been around for a long time but never established a rapport with the national electorate, struggled to articulate a vision for the future of the country and lacked any natural rhetorical gifts.

Certainly, nobody expected George H.W. Bush to deliver the Gettysburg Address at the Republican National Convention in 1988. But, low expectations aside, his speech became one of the most memorable from any modern-day nominee.


It was from the stage at the Superdome in New Orleans that Bush delivered his famous promise: “Read my lips: no new taxes.” Accepting his party’s nomination, he unveiled his vision for “a kinder, and gentler nation” and ended with the uplifting vision of a better America as “an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of light.”

Democrats gathered in Philadelphia for Hillary Clinton’s nomination compared her challenges to those of Bush Père, a politician known for plodding pragmatism who was running on a platform of relative continuity with the Reagan administration that graduated him. But at his convention, Bush handily dispatched the notion that he suffered from a “wimp factor” and the persona of an insensitive patrician — and it had a lot to do with that speech.

On Thursday night, the finale of a Democratic National Convention that helped unite the party for the upcoming fight against Donald Trump, Clinton faces a similar kind of test and opportunity when she takes the stage. Like Bush 28 years ago, Clinton must change baked-in perceptions that she lacks authenticity and vision. And she must give America a better sense of who she is when she’s not playing the politician and why she can be trusted to keep her promises.

“A successful speech gives people richer insight not just in where she wants to lead, but also what drives her,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “That’s a lot of what this convention has been about. She’s a terribly guarded person. It needs to be a genuine conversation with the nation.”

The nominee’s speech is not often the most memorable address of a party convention. The speech that is most referenced from four years ago is Bill Clinton’s argument for Obama, not the nominee’s own words. Eight years ago, Obama basically winged his convention speech — Axelrod and chief speechwriter Jon Favreau didn’t even have a draft going two nights before Obama was supposed to deliver it, and the candidate ran through the finished product for the first time just a few hours before his live prime-time delivery.

But Obama was a candidate entering the convention with the wind at his back, and he was using the platform to broaden his base by targeting his message to independents. Clinton is entering the convention with more ground to recover, and her aides have been toiling over her convention speech for weeks.

“The challenge is broader for her,” said Axelrod. “She needs to reach voters who are inclined to be for her and who might be, but who have questions about various elements of her character and motivation. There was less of a need to hear from Obama about his motivations.”

In interviews ahead of Clinton’s historic speech as the first woman to become a major party nominee, many Democrats gathered in Philadelphia said they needed to hear less about her policies and more about herself — just the kind of speech she naturally shies away from.

“The convention has put her in a newly personal light,” said Democratic strategist Ben LaBolt, noting the large number of personal testimonials from average Americans who have shared stories of Clinton’s behind-the-scenes work throughout her life. “Now it's her chance to reflect on her life story and link it to her vision for the country.”

Democrats supporting Clinton admitted that her ultimate problem is establishing a real connection with more voters and convincing independents, or Democrats with reservations, that she can be trusted. “She can’t say this, but her message should be: You may not like me, but you can count on me to do what I promise to do,” said one Clinton veteran.

For Clinton, the emotional headliner speeches on the first two days of the convention are hard acts to follow. Michelle Obama’s voice cracked as she spoke on Monday night about how her daughters can now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States. Bernie Sanders’ eyes were glassy with tears as he closed the roll call for Clinton, requesting that his hard-won delegates switch their allegiances to support his former rival.

Bill Clinton on Tuesday night showed his ability to hold an intimate discussion in a hall packed with close to 30,000 people, with 24.7 million more watching on television. “In the spring of 1971, I met a girl,” he said, launching into his personal history alongside his wife’s incredible, history-making journey. Even if his speech felt tedious at points, it showed off how at ease he is in that forum.

Hillary Clinton — known to be more comfortable rattling off long lists of policy proposals than showing any sense of connection with a large audience from behind a podium — doesn’t give many emotional speeches. She is known to resist being viewed as a symbol and strips out paragraphs written by her speechwriters that she views as overly passionate for her Methodist sensibilities. Veteran aides also complain that the Clinton speechwriting process — which involves sharing a draft of a speech with a small Manhattan Project of consultants and outside advisers — sometimes has the effect of dulling any magic.

The most remarkable speeches of her campaign have been about issues, such as when she has addressed the country’s problem with systemic racism — not about herself. She has incorporated into her biggest addresses stories about the inspiration she took from her mother’s hard life and fortitude — but she still doesn’t often open up to give voters an un-canned sense of who she is.

Even the speech she delivered in Brooklyn on June 7, the night she clinched the Democratic nomination, was not deeply personal: The focus of the evening instead was on the long line of feminists who came before her and helped lead to the moment.

Few expect her to reach Bill Clinton levels of intimacy and comfort on the stage, but “the closer she could come to that the better,” Axelrod said. “It would be surprising and relieving to people who are used to her filtering stuff through a more political lens.”

For Clinton, who says on the campaign trail that she’s not a natural at politicking but will be expert at governing, the emotional, personal speech is the hardest piece of all. It’s exactly what she has recognized as a weakness since she ditched the role of political spouse and launched a political career of her own.

On the day she announced her run for New York Senate in 2000, from the porch of Daniel Moynihan’s farm, she realized with a thud that politicking did not come as naturally to her as it did to the man she had stood next to and learned from. On a phone call that night with White House adviser Harold Ickes, she sighed and admitted: “I never knew how easy Bill made this look.”

