Rounding Up Hillary Clinton's DNC Speech

I thought Clinton’s speech last night was fair, for what she was trying to accomplish. Not as good as it could have been coming from any of several other speakers, Democrat or Republican, but then Hillary Clinton has always been more wooden and worse at public speaking and campaigning than her husband, or Barack Obama.

First, these acceptance speeches also need to be shorter, for both parties. This is a key opportunity for the candidates to reach undecided voters who may be tuning in just to see what all the fuss is about, but aren’t normally engaged. When the speeches run more than an hour by themselves, many of these voters will just as quickly tune out. In 2012, both Romney’s and Obama’s speeches were kept under forty minutes. Future nominees need to follow that example.

But the most interesting aspect of the speech was not the delivery but the content. Predictably, Clinton found time for a laundry list of liberal policies and reforms she hoped to achieve in office, from a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United to raising the minimum wage. But interspersed with these hallmarks of major Democratic speeches was a continuation of Obama’s speech from Wednesday night, when he targeted Republicans dissatisfied with Trump.

For the first time in a long time, it is the Democrats who are nominating a candidate who is tough on Russia, supportive of NATO and other American allies, and openly talk about how great America currently is, rather than a need to make it great again. When it is the Democratic nominee who more frequently talks about the uniqueness of the American experiment, the greatness and optimism of Ronald Reagan, and the importance of freedom, liberty, and opportunity, the election has truly taken a strange turn.

I appreciate the outreach, but it won’t make me any more likely to vote for Clinton. Even counting the few ways in which she is better than Trump, including her opposition to Russia and support of NATO, she is too far to the left, too untrustworthy, and has too many scandals under her belt already to win my support. For every moment last night that sounded alluring to conservatives on the sidelines, there was a moment that reminded us why she would not be a faithful guardian of limited constitutional government. Just as Trump has proven himself manifestly unfit for high office, so too has Clinton by her conduct during the decades she has spent in the public eye.

Thanks, but no thanks.