If the Obamas sought to bring Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention back to 2008, Bill Clinton tried to bring Wednesday night back to 1992.
It was a vintage Clinton performance. He managed to give a speech — that he was characteristically tinkering with so late into the process that he had to deliver it off the page rather than strictly off the teleprompter — that felt more like a conversation with the crowd than an address. He made some of his classic rhetorical flourishes. He made historical contrasts between Republicans and Democrats, and he made points on policy. He even managed to joke about McDonald’s.
Although his roughly 30-minute speech pushed the rest of the night off schedule, Clinton’s address hit many of the themes Kamala Harris is desperate to hammer home: an aspirational vision for America, protecting the American Dream, defending democracy. He even stole much of the GOP’s language on the Constitution, the Gospel and freedom.
Clinton’s speech wasn’t just about delivering a positive view of a Harris and Tim Walz ticket, however. He also contrasted the Democratic vision with Donald Trump. Specifically, he painted the former president as a selfish agent of chaos.
“He creates chaos, and then he sort of curates it, as if it were precious art,” Clinton said.
Clinton — not exactly at his most energetic but still able to extemporaneously deliver much of his speech — also turned what was recently one of the most potent attacks against Democrats back on Trump: age.
“Two days ago, I turned 78,” Clinton said. “The oldest man in my family who is still living, and the only personal vanity I want to assert is that I’m still younger than Donald Trump.”
Clinton spent considerable time attacking Trump’s selfishness, arguing that Harris is concerned with you, that she’s “for the people,” while Trump is concerned with “me, myself and I.”
“He is like one of those tenors opening up before they go out on stage like I did, trying to get his lungs to open up by saying ‘me, me, me, me,’” Clinton said.
The 42nd president had a number of lines that, in a less charitable and more modern view, could be considered cringe. But his address, and in particular a joke he recycled from 30 years ago, was still received overwhelmingly well.
He noted that one of Harris’ first jobs was at McDonald’s, and he said he would be “so happy” when she entered the White House because she would “break my record as the president who spent the most time at McDonald’s.”
But in classic Clinton fashion, he ended his plea by hitting a theme he ran on in 1992: Hope.
Clinton hails from — as he’s said countless times — a little town called Hope, Arkansas. And he said Wednesday night that, if voters elect Harris and Walz, they would bring a breath of fresh air into the White House.
“Your children will be proud of it. Your grandchildren will be proud of it,” Clinton said. “Take it from a man who once had the honor to be called in this convention, ‘a man from Hope.’”
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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.