Former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder thinks Hillary Clinton has blundered by trying to turn the presidential election into a referendum on Donald Trump. “When I ran for office, I never mentioned my opponent’s name. I always said, ‘Vote for me for these reasons,’” the 85-year-old Democrat said during an hour-long interview here yesterday. “Even today, she still needs to develop a message.”

Wilder, who in 1990 became the first elected black governor in U.S. history, said he knows many African Americans, especially millennials, who may not vote. “A lot of Democrats tell me they don’t see the need,” he lamented. “It’s not so much that people are turned off by Hillary as it is that they’re not turned on by anybody.”

Sitting in his corner office on the fourth floor of a public policy center that is named for him at Virginia Commonwealth University, Wilder called on Clinton to quickly lay out more detailed plans for improving schools, cutting crime and creating jobs. “If she doesn’t, the excitement that she needs might not be there,” he said. “For her to go out and say to the African American community, ‘I want you to elect me so that we can continue the legacy of Barack Obama,’ what exactly is it that you want to continue?”