Donald Trump's angry and shouted message last week was that America has gone dark and that he alone can restore the utopian condition enjoyed by Ozzie, Harriett, Beaver and Sheriff Taylor over in Mayberry.
Trump seemed mainly to be appealing to the Clint Eastwood character in Gran Torino, before the old Korean War veteran's heart got softened by actual interaction with the different-looking people next door.
Trump thus left to Hillary Clinton, if she can take it, that vast part of contemporary America that does not consist of bitter old white people wanting all these kids and blacks and Mexicans and Asians and gays and Muslims and people with health insurance to get off their lawns.
This week Clinton will seek to fashion a counter-message, ideally something a little broader than her message thus far--that she wants desperately to be president and has had to wait way too darned long already.
She will seek a kinder, gentler tone--which does not come easily to her.
She will say that no one person can restore anything, but that only people working together can; that America shouldn't and can't go backward, but forward more inclusively in pursuit of reduced economic inequality; that this colorfully diverse new America, with a Modern Family in place of the Cleavers, is perfectly healthy and can get even better if we remember that "love trumps hate."
Hillary warmed up on that tone and message Friday in Tampa, speaking with a hand-held microphone, no teleprompter and no podium. She was seeking and largely achieving a little of husband Bill, feeling our pain; a little of Barack Obama, offering hope and optimism; a little of Ellen DeGeneres, chatting easily in a contemporary and progressive way; and a little of the warm and engaging person her pals have always contended she could be in small, informal and comfortable settings.
I have only one story about glimpsing that private Hillary. In the late '80s I was invited to be among persons making presentations to a First Commercial Bank national advisory board that the late Bill Bowen put together. Then I was invited to join the group and other presenters for dinner that evening at the Governor's Mansion.
It was Hillary, not Bill, who arose to welcome everyone warmly and apply context to the group and gathering.
I remember thinking three things. One was that she was almost intimate in her ease of engagement. Two was that she was confident and commanding in the presence of mostly business executives. Three was that I hadn't known this Hillary, nor fully grasped the extent to which she was the boss of the place.
A couple of hours after the Tampa rally, Clinton announced, in this pursuit of her broader message, the perfect choice of a running mate.
Tim Kaine is, first and always, a good guy.
He does no harm and brings no risk to the ticket, leaving Hillary to fashion the winning message if she can, which is the way it must be.
Kaine is broadly experienced--a missionary fluent in Spanish, a Jesuit-educated and Harvard-trained activist lawyer fighting for social justice, a city board member, a mayor, a governor and a U.S. senator with foreign-policy credentials and a determination to improve services for the disabled.
He is a religious family man. He is essentially liberal, but independent and pragmatic and understated about it.
So what if he has liked the Trans-Pacific Partnership and is not as anti-Wall Street as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren? Hillary dictates his public positions now. She's the one who matters. As she slides, he slides.
Kaine is said to be boring. But amid this cast of characters, with negative ratings approaching 70 percent, boring soars as an attribute.
Anyway, he's not all that boring. His introductory speech Saturday in Miami was more connecting and effective than anything his running mate has produced this season.
He is highly regarded by those who know him. Mark Shields said on PBS Friday night that a Senate source had told him that Kaine's selection would mean that one of the four people on the tickets actually would be worthy of and ready for the presidency, presumably by experience, temperament and character.
He was Barack Obama's veep runner-up eight years ago. He advised Obama not to pick him because they were too much alike.
Thus Kaine holds the ticket steady so that Hillary can go about trying to win the race.
Trump might not be beaten alone by attacks on his massive flaws.
Typically, he gets 40 to 42 percent in polls, along with a negative rating of 62 to 67 percent. Those are sets that overlap.
What Clinton must do is give voters who don't want to vote for Trump a reason to see her as something better than a similar evil.
This is the week to do it. Four-day national spotlights come along only once every four years.
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 07/26/2016