The weakest part of the Democratic Convention was its nominee

Trump also supplies Hillary Clinton with something she desperately needs: an argument for her campaign. She has tried various slogans, settling most recently on “Stronger Together.” It’s a platitude—and not an especially exciting one. The Democrats recycled lines from conventions past, including si se puede, which was chanted during vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine’s goofy and disappointing remarks. Is Clinton running for President Obama’s third term, or as a “change maker”? Is she the candidate of Bernie Sanders or of General John Allen?

And what makes Clinton a change maker, anyway? Her health care plan was a failure. She may have supported the children’s health insurance bill, but it was Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch who moved it through Congress. I am happy she worked with Chuck Schumer to appropriate federal money for New York after 9/11, but is that really such an accomplishment? The country was ready to do almost anything that was asked of it after the terrorist attacks. Clinton supported interventions in Iraq and Libya that, to put it mildly, did not go as planned. She lost the nomination to Obama in 2008 and would have lost it again this year to either Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren. She lied repeatedly to the public about the contents, security, and reason for her private email server. Even her supporters concede that she has a penchant for secrecy and a suspicion of outsiders that could hamper her ability to govern. The Hillary mystique is her inflated and undeserved reputation for competence. She is her own worst enemy. Ironically, the same could be said of her opponent in this odd and dispiriting presidential election.