Bernie Sanders was right: This was YUGE. And not just the turnout and the margin for him. Hillary Clinton is still the favorite, but for sure this is now a real campaign. Her challenge is to convey a sense of vision that reaches people’s hearts as well as heads, and convinces them in human terms that their lives and hopes will be different if she—and they—win this election. By itself, realism is not a rallying cry. You can’t move and inspire voters by telling them: Don’t reach higher, don’t look over the horizon, settle for less than the change you want. Campaigns are not just for agenda-setting or calls to practicality; they are aspirational.

Clinton can rise to this standard. She was a superb, engaging, motivating candidate in the latter days of her 2008 effort, when she could no longer be nominated. That Clinton needs to re-emerge. And that more than anything else will make her authentic. The answer isn’t internal recrimination; in her campaign, she has some of the most talented folks in American politics. Nor is the answer simply to depend on firewalls or a series of appeals to a collection of constituencies. The demographics are important, but a message with a central theme that informs everything else, that lifts and persuades at a visceral and not simply a one-dimensional rational level, is indispensable.