What should Hillary Clinton say tonight?

Thoughts on How to Make a Trump-Smiting Speech

• Here’s how Hillary should frame herself: as “a tough mother(f-)”. Hey look, I didn’t invent the patriarchy; it’s a just fact of life that women running for office only have a few cultural positions available to them, and given that her opponent is like a boiled down essence of unreconstructed, reckless masculinity, it seems like leading with her caring, children-raising side will work. Michelle Obama did exactly that, on Clinton’s behalf, and very effectively. But obviously Clinton needs to be much more than a nice mom…
• She needs one or two big, clippable lines about ISIS. Her biggest electoral problem is a massive deficit with white working class men. She won’t be able to reverse that, but if she can claw a few points back from Trump with this demographic, then she wins. The issue on which she can connect with them is terrorism. She needs to present herself as a far more determined and deadly enemy of ISIS than Trump. It’s surprising that more Democratic speakers haven’t focused on national security, given that their adversary is vulnerable to attacks on this front, particularly after his comments yesterday. And there is no downside for Clinton on going hard, rhetorically speaking, after this enemy. The left of her party are suspicious of her hawkishness, but nobody likes ISIS.
• Reach out to Bernie supporters — no, really reach out. Show them love. Tell them that Bernie’s campaign had an impact on the way she thinks and feels about America, that he made her realise something about how much people are angry and hurting. Obviously she needs to do this without signalling some massive leap to the left. But the Democratic platform is very ‘progressive’ now, it is thanks to him, and she needs to show the Bernies that this isn’t purely tactical, that it won’t be forgotten the moment she becomes president.
• Relatedly: put a little bit of distance between herself and Hillary Clinton. Not in an Andy Burnham way, but in a way that shows that she is responsive to the times, and not stuck in some eternal 1992. For instance, on free trade — has she come to a realisation that too much of it can hurt ordinary Americans? Has she changed her mind about TIPP? This has the advantage of appealing to Trump voters too.
• Open up. I know, everyone says it, and I know she won’t do it. But she needs to find a way, either emotionally or through humour — quite possibly the latter — of showing her real self, which everyone who knows her says is very different from the cold and awkward figure we’re used to seeing on stage.
• Change her tagline. OK this is off topic. But ‘I’m with Her’ is awful, like some big in-joke that only the elites are in on. She could do worse than steal from Michael Bloomberg: “Hillary: Sane and Competent”. But really, it ought to be about what she’s going to do for voters, and not about her.