Greensboro, N.C. — She looked so refreshed, some of her detractors thought it had to be a body double.

Four days after collapsing on a Manhattan sidewalk, Hillary Clinton strode confidently back onto the campaign trail Thursday, spinning her untimely bout of pneumonia as a blessing in disguise that allowed her to hit the reset button on a campaign slowly losing altitude.


After months when both candidates tried to scare their supporters into the voting booth by discrediting the other side, a rejuvenated Clinton vowed Thursday to “give Americans something to vote for, not just against.”

The time at home in Chappaqua recuperating with her dogs, she said, allowed Clinton to reconnect with what her campaign was really about — children and families — and cut through the “noise” and the “non-stop analysis that has nothing to do with what the next president has to do to create new jobs, to create opportunity.”

The campaign trail “doesn’t really encourage reflection,” she admitted. “It’s important to sit with your thoughts every now and then. It helped me reconnect with what this whole campaign is about.” Clinton did not explain where, along the way, she felt she lost the thread.

Clinton would be well-served by a reset. In recent weeks, she has squandered her convention bounce, allowing Donald Trump to pull even with her in a recent national poll and take the lead in some critical battleground states like Iowa and Ohio. Her overheating episode on Sunday resulted in a new round of questions about transparency, while her campaign was still cleaning up her “basket of deplorables” gaffe from last week.

But at a rally in Greensboro — a last-minute addition to the candidate’s schedule, which put a roaring crowd around Clinton for her return — she leaned into the health incident to create a comeback narrative, which happens to be the Clintons’ favorite kind.

The ubiquitous “Fight Song” that typically plays as the Democratic nominee takes the stage was replaced with James Brown’s “I Feel Good” blaring over the sound system at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

“Welcome to the fitness center, everyone!” Clinton joked as she entered the gym where a podium had been set up for her to take questions from the news media.

On stage, the Democratic nominee turned back to one of her old favorite lines, saying she is running “for everyone who’s been knocked down but gets back up,” a nod to her own literal stumble.

“When it comes to public service, I’m better at the service part than the public part,” she said, a concession that seemed necessary after it was revealed Clinton did not disclose her pneumonia diagnosis even to some of her top campaign officials, or to her running mate, until her collapse on Sunday.

And promising to turn a new, more positive leaf, she said, “from now until Nov. 8, everywhere I go, I’m going to talk about my ideas for my country.”

Many Democratic allies for months have been pressing Clinton to make the affirmative case for her own candidacy, arguing that discrediting Trump alone is only half of a strategy, one hand clapping. With 54 days to go, she began making the shift now that she’s stuck, once again, in a tight race. A CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday showed Donald Trump with a 5 percentage-point lead in Ohio, and running in a dead heat with Clinton in Florida. A New York Times poll released Thursday show Clinton leading nationally by just 2 points, 46 to 44 percent, and both candidates still struggling to inspire confidence in their bases.

Communications director Jennifer Palmieri said she did not see Thursday’s return to the trail as a pivot point. “Every day after Labor Day is its own self-contained universe that matters,” Palmieri said. “She had a few more days to reflect about running in this kind of race, and wanting to focus attention where the campaign should be.”

In the past, Clinton has admitted she lacks the natural political and oratorical skills of President Barack Obama or even her husband, former President Bill Clinton. On Thursday, however, she recast her self-assessment to contrast her own skills with those of Donald Trump. “I’ll never be the showman my opponent is,” Clinton said, “and that’s OK with me.”

The more personal address was written by speechwriter Megan Rooney, who traveled with Clinton to North Carolina Thursday, and was tweaked over the past three days to include more self-revelation. “Like a lot of women, I have a tendency to overprepare — I sweat the details,” Clinton said, a rare reference to her gender.

Even in her more affirmative tone, Clinton took some veiled swipes at Trump without mentioning his name. “We don’t need a president who thinks only married people deserve paid leave and only mothers ever stay home with the kids,” she said, attacking her opponent’s new paid maternity leave plan.

But despite the promise of a new temperament and focus for her campaign in the final stretch, there were still signs of the old Clinton — a lingering tickle in her throat, and her age-old porcupine bristles that shoot out when confronted by the press.

Clinton’s voice started to crack about 16 minutes into her speech, but she soldiered on without erupting in a coughing fit. And at about 23 minutes, her speech was shorter than her usual 30- to 40-minute addresses. In a brief news conference after her remarks, the former secretary of state became visibly frustrated, terse and distant when confronted with questions about why she had not shared her diagnosis of pneumonia with running mate Tim Kaine.

“My senior staff knew, and information was provided to a number of people,” she said vaguely. “I communicated with Tim. I talked to him again last night. He has been a great partner. We communicated, but I’m not going to go into our personal conversations. I feel comfortable and confident about our relationship.”

Clinton stomped off after taking just six questions, a reminder that the return to the trail isn’t always as pleasant and positive as she might want it to be.

And it was clear that even after her reflective time out, Clinton still recoils at parts of the process, and would prefer to simply fast forward the next 54 days, win the election and get to work. “When I meet a little boy in Flint, Michigan, who can’t drink the water at home or in school — that gets me going,” she said. “All I want to do is get to work making things better for them.”