A retired general who combated ISIS. Dozens of former military brass. Family members of fallen police and soldiers. Self-identified Republicans with warm words for Ronald Reagan.

The prime-time lineup on the final night of the Democratic National Convention was remarkable because it could have been ripped from the script of a Republican convention in any other election year. Yet it was precisely the lineup Hillary Clinton chose to usher in her nomination on Thursday, an unsubtle offensive to hook GOP voters uneasy with Donald Trump’s candidacy.


“He’s taken the Republican Party a long way from morning in America to midnight in America," Clinton quipped from the convention stage, invoking Reagan's sunny optimism, beloved of conservatives.

Clinton's speech followed a booming entreaty from John Allen, a retired four-star general who commanded troops in Afghanistan, that lambasted Trump's world view and provided a foreign policy hawk's rationale for choosing Clinton over Trump.

“With her as our commander in chief, our international relations will not be reduced to a business transaction,” said John Allen, a retired four-star general who commanded troops in Afghanistan. “I also know that our armed forces will not become an instrument of torture, and they will not be engaged in murder, or carry out other illegal activities.”

Allen’s speech was a direct condemnation of Trump, who has called for a reintroduction of waterboarding and other more brutal forms of torture. In fact, as Allen spoke, Trump reissued that call at a rally in Eastern Iowa.

“So they can chop off heads. They can drown people in steel cages. They can cut your throats,” Trump said of Islamic State fighters. “We can't waterboard. You know, we're playing by different rules, okay? We're playing by different rules."

After a staid, even boring, day of low-profile lawmakers and elected leaders, Clinton stuffed her primetime agenda with voices often sidelined during Democratic conventions. They at once highlighted Trump’s weaknesses with traditional Republican constituencies and attempted to shore up Clinton’s own perceived weaknesses.

The Clinton campaign believes it has an opportunity with suburban, national security-minded voters who backed Mitt Romney, John McCain and George W. Bush. The message, in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania, is that Trump is too dangerous and unsteady to be trusted in serious times—while, implicitly, Clinton is an experienced, and, as former Mayor Michael Bloomberg put it, “sane” leader. Her campaign has already gone up on air in swing states with a message to that effect.

Clinton appealed to moderate voters on guns, reassuring a skeptical constituency.

"I'm not here to take away your guns. I just don't want you to be shot by someone who shouldn't have a gun in the first place," she said.

As much of the Republican Party has come around to Trump, one of the staunchest hold-outs is the foreign policy-focused conservatives who believe, first and foremost, that America is a force for good in the world and must have a muscular presence in global affairs, reflecting that. For them, Clinton’s ideology is much closer to theirs than is Trump’s inward-looking “America First” foreign policy.

In another overture to this group, Clinton ripped Trump's mockery of Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, for getting captured during his military service in Vietnam. Clinton called McCain "a hero and a patriot who deserves our respect."

“This feels a lot more like last night of 2004 RNC than Cleveland,” tweeted Stuart Stevens, a strategist to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, after Clinton's speech.

The strategy is not without risk. The Democratic convention began with Clinton allies desperately working to stamp out a rebellion by liberal supporters of Bernie Sanders, who are deeply skeptical of Clinton's ties to Wall Street and her support for interventionist foreign policies. Trump has repeatedly ripped Clinton's support for the war in Iraq — though his only recorded opposition to it came after the war began. Trump has made overtures to Sanders allies, arguing that they should appreciate his rebuke of the political establishment, opposition to international trade deals and rejection of special interests.

"I propose a different vision for America, one where we can break up Washington’s rigged system, and empower all Americans to achieve their dreams" Trump said in a statement earlier on Thursday. "In our vision, we will put America First."

Hillary Clinton's acceptance speech at the 2016 DNC Hillary Clinton accepted the nomination for the candidate for the Democratic party on Thursday at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

But Clinton's concerted appeal to the center-right was reflected in the lineup that Clinton trotted out in primetime at the height of her four-day national convention – a series of speakers that would once have been more at home addressing the Republican gathering in Cleveland last week were it not for their unconventional nominee. Trump has spurned traditional foreign policy thinkers by questioning America’s role in NATO and by cozying up to Russia. He’s alienated moderate Republicans with his harsh rhetoric toward racial minorities.

Clinton’s opening acts included two self-described Republicans leading efforts to support Clinton’s candidacy.

“I haven’t just voted Republican. I worked in President Reagan’s White House,” said Doug Elmets, who worked for Reagan as a spokesman and a speechwriter. “I recently led an effort to place a statue of Ronald Reagan in California’s capitol. I’m here tonight to say: I knew Ronald Reagan; I worked for Ronald Reagan. Donald Trump, you are no Ronald Reagan.”

A Republican Party spokesman quickly pointed out that Elmets has a history of contributing to Democrats, including Montana Sen. Jon Tester. (Trump, however, also has a history of contributing heavily to Democrats).

Perhaps the most powerful moment of the night came from Khizr Khan, a Muslim American from Virginia whose son – a captain in the U.S. Army – was killed in Iraq in 2004 and earned a posthumous Bronze Star for heroism. Khan said his son dreamt of becoming a military lawyer, “but he put those dreams aside the day he sacrificed his life to save the lives of his fellow soldiers.”

“Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son the best of America,” he said. “If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America. Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership.”

“You have sacrificed nothing,” he added.

Nolan D. McCaskill, Louis Nelson and Tyler Pager contributed to this report.