I begin with john heilemann. Did Hillary Clinton advance her cause . How will it benefit her . John the big answer is yes. Interested in the conventions, that is what the conventions are. They are a Big Television production. This was a wellstaged, wellcrafted convention. We often talk about how one big speech is the thing that people remember. Usually the nominee speech out of the convention. This convention i think will be received more holistically. They put together for nights obviously, very strong speakers biden,chelle obama, joe barack obama, of course, and Hillary Clinton. But the convention enhanced an argument and the argument was an argument that was an argument about the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton are the optimistic, patriotic party. In the Republican Party is the pessimistic party. I think that the sum total of this argument is the way that people saw it at home. I think that would do a lot of good for Hillary Clinton. Translates to a large bump in the polls or not, i dont know. I think in terms of advancing the kind of case that she wants to make against this particular republican nominee, i think it was laid out in a rigorous and powerful way. Think what the convention did a relatively good job of doing was trying to humanize Hillary Clinton. We have seen her on the campaign trail as this more robotic politician. That has been the big knock against her, that she is not loosen off, that she is not herself, that she is not saying it like it is. What you had at that convention was be chapter speech going out and showing who Hillary Clinton was behind the scenes, what she was like as a wife and mother, how she has played into this political world we live in now years. Past 3040 i think they did a good job of that. Does that translate to voters . I was speaking with a republican operative who believes it is a question of her trustworthiness and they did not get to that point last night. Of course, the democrats would disagree. one of the issues for Hillary Clinton is the fact that we are talking about this so much, how much we have had to humanize her even though we have known her for three decades in the public eye. Journalists are talking about. In some ways, it is back the point it brings back the Point Charlie i thought they did humanize her and they embraced this question that she was caricatured as a cartoon figure. That is the dynamic they set up by calling her the real one and calling him a cartoonstyle character. You had bill clinton saying that. Chelseas speech last night could have been a little bit stronger. She talked about what it was like growing up, but that momentum and enthusiasm in the crowd for that speech. Still, when you look back at this, john is right. Michelle obamas speech, talking about how important it was to her daughters to have a woman as president , i thought that was one of those artful and galvanizing moment. It was about presenting this progressive, optimistic image, in contrast to donald trump. At it was also, this is choice for the ages in terms of where we are going on the pathway. I thought they did a good job. This is a serious moment. John redefining Hillary Clinton, who has been a major figure in american politics for more than a generation, is a tall order. Where they were successful is in this optimistic bridge vision. Teams that have been central to the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan have now found their voice at the Democratic Convention. Some republicans accuse them of stealing their message. Charlie that began with the barack obama speech. It did. Consider that speech for a moment. We have never seen a speech like that from an outgoing american president. Perfunctoryis a passing of the baton. This was not simply a praising of Hillary Clinton, but a takedown of donald trump by the outgoing president. He did not have Ronald Reagan going after Michael Dukakis in 1988. Bill clinton never mentioned george w. Bush at his convention in 2000. Charlie i think that speaks to trunk and who he is. What they did is used his words against him. And what i thought was interesting, explicitly with the speech by Hillary Clinton, but also in obamas speech, this is not a republican. Invokingillary clinton morning in america. You had obama invoking city on the hill. Two republicans made comments that were to the point. One was janet goldberg, who said that the Democratic Convention was about democrats loving america and the Republican Convention was about republicans loving trump. It does get to the thing i mentioned before, which we will get to. Second was the republican chairman, who said it was the best chair convention he had ever been to be he had ever been to. Clinton,party, hillary there was nothing where Hillary Clinton challenged democratic orthodoxy. It is a much more progressive party. Megan the democrats are trying to urge a seachange in politics and trying to woo republicans who are not enthralled by trump and do not believe he represents their values or their party or that he is not a republican. While donald trump is trying to sanders supporters on trade, Hillary Clinton is hitting security and american nationalism in order to get the republicans who do not feel they are being represented by donald trump. There is a significant portion of those republicans out there that could potentially be wooed. Said,the thing that trump there was one moment and he said , i know the system better than anyone so i am the only one qualified to fix it. You think about that convention, there was so much focus on lack of vetting a lot of the speeches. Particularly melanias speech, which contained a lot of plagiarism. , a more devastating failure real Political Writer would have said, this line should not be in the speech to the speech. It does come across as selfinvolved and egomaniacal. Charlie and they made the suggestion of fascism. John right, but to hear that in his own words and be able to avoid back and say, america is not about one person who can fix things. America is about we, not about i. It was true in obamas speech, Hillary Clintons speech. Charlie she was also challenging trump. She looked right in the camera and said, no, no, no. I thought she had more presence than i had seen before. I thought this was the best speech she had made. Not necessarily as what mrs. Obama did. She seemed to be having a conversation with the audience. Everyone else was making a speech and she seemed to be making conversation. Was one of the Great Convention speeches that i have ever witnessed. It was also one of the shortest. It was beautifully structured and did not attack trump by name , but it was a devastating takedown of donald trump. It was not overtly partisan. She was able to do this without offending the people who had been attracted to trump. Katy the line that sticks out, when they go low, we go high. Singling him out and trying to remind americans out there that this is the path. We are an aspirational nation. Do not let fear drive your decisionmaking. And really seizing the hand of history and what it meant to her as a black woman who has two black daughters running around on the lawn of the white house. Just powerful imagery. That was to with people. They will remember that speech. They may not remember much else. They will remember Hillary Clinton and what she looked like. I agree that she seemed to have more presence and got stronger and more confident as she went along. But that speech will stick in peoples minds. America, in the best of times, is supposed to be about. John it was not asked illicitly political explicitly political, but it was explicitly political. Childrene ads is watching donald trump speaker to this argument is what Michelle Obama is talking about. They are reinforcing this argument in advertising around the country. This is a president you might be ashamed of. You do not want to have as a role model. Dovetailed with what they are doing in much of the traditional political avenues out there. I think you will hear that through november. Is this really what you want your kids to have as a role model for the next 4 to 8 years . Charlie it depends on a referendum of who or what. Did the democrats come closer to making donald trump the issue . They did. Elieve we will see what kind of bomb she gets in the polls. This convention was a cohesive way to say donald trump is an answer to all your problems. Donald trump has said, i will give you everything. You can make your historical comparisons to that, but they are trying to say the donald trump is not somebody who can alone going to washington and fix everything and make everything better and give the American Public everything that they want. This is just an image that he is portraying. Ultimately, that he is out there for himself. He is accusing the democrats of being. Cares to talk about himself and how well he is doing. That is a message that has so far not gone over with donald Trump Supporters and those who want change in washington because they see him as, even with all of his faults, as someone who can go in and stir things up. Throw a theoretical bomb into capitol hill and make things change. And they want that. They do not care who it is. Donald trump is not a perfect messenger, but it is their messenger. The task for the democrats is to effectively poke holes in his armor. In his image. Who is he as a businessman . . Ho is he as a humanitarian does he give as much to charity as he says . Does he help is help other people as much as he says . So far, they are starting to do that. Charlie a successful businessman came out there to make that point. that was the thing when he laid it on the line. That was the key thing about that speech. Appealing to independent people. He went out there with a message of saying this is not a terrible decision for this man in terms of being a businessman. I am a businessman and i know. Jonathan the bigger thing is convincing people with doubts about Hillary Clinton that she is the alternative. He already has skyhigh negatives. Too. As skyhigh negatives, what this convention needed to do was not convince them that donald trump is unfit for office or someone who cannot be trusted, they need to make the case that Hillary Clinton can be trusted. Swathes of the electorate have doubts about that. This election will be determined about how well you can reduce your negatives. Jonathan right now, we have the extraordinary circumstance where both parties nominees are seen negatively by the majority of the electorate. I think she did make some progress there. We got the sense before the speech clinton people were saying that she was going to express the knowledge acknowledge the people who have doubts about her. She did not quite do that in her speech. John the other thing she has to , because of comes positions on a lot trumps positions on the leftright continuum have been has been scrambled. This is more about inside and outside. There is a lot of energy for change and outside right now. Isrlie to suggest that she not necessarily a change agent. Have they understand they a vulnerability in that area. It is a real problem. Energythere is a lot of on the populist outside. Being the insider candidate who is the candidate of continuity in this cycle is a disadvantage that Hillary Clinton has to overcome. I am not sure she made much progress. If the idea becomes this is a third term for barack obama, that is not change. That is continuity. Downside. Is the there is an upside. One of the most powerful thing that people remember is the image of barack obama and Hillary Clinton on the stage together. Given the way the Electoral College works in the way the elections have been for the last five elections, Hillary Clinton holds on to all of Barack Obamas voters, she is going to win the election. There is a downside as being seen as the candidate of continuity and a third term. On the other hand, if she can get those obama voters to come out for her, she will win handily. Charlie explain this to me. I have asked everybody about this. How is it that the right track, is so high inll terms of america is on the wrong track and at the same time, barack obama is experiencing very good numbers. Really think we overfocused on right track, wrong track. Barack obamas number four years ago was almost as high as he is now. The reelection handily. Part of the reason people say the country is on the wrong track, you do not know anything about clear blaming. A fair number of people are saying it is on the wrong track because of republican obstructionism in congress. It is a really blunt instrument. It is a course reading of people being concerned, but not who they blame or why they are concerned. Jonathan regardless, it makes it harder to run a state of Course Campaign if people think were going in the wrong direction. Charlie a number of people on the inside say this election will turn on turnout and that is what the democrats are most concerned about. The know they have constituency and have come out of a good convention with no mistakes and some very good speeches, including by the candidate, but they worry about turnout. They have to inspire voters to come out and vote for them. Donald trump has done a good job inspiring voters to come out for him. The older white man or older white women who feel like they are disenfranchised or left behind in the progressive last eight with the years of a progressive president. They wanted to go back to the way things were before, when coal mining jobs existed and manufacturing jobs were still very beneficial, when there was not globalism. Hillary clinton needs to find a way to inspire her voters, but also minority voters. The latino vote is going to be huge in this election if they come out and vote in the numbers the democrats hope they do. So far, with the latino vote in the past, it has not been as strong a turnout as the democrats have hoped. It has been ok in the past eight years because they were able to beat mitt romneys speech on mccain. But the latino vote could swing this election entirely if they go to the polls. That is what the democrats have to work on. The republicans are going to do their best to get the turnout on the older white side to be as high as it possibly can to mitigate that. When i have asked about outreach for africanamericans and latinos, the answer i get from the campaign is dont worry about it. We are going to do it. It is going to be fine. Or donald trump saying, as of yesterday, that he believes the women vote is going to be a sleeper vote for him. There is no outreach coming from the donald trump camp right now. Part of the democrat answer to that is barack obama. I think that is what he is there to do. John undoubtedly did this will appeal to you, being the lover of narrative. One of the Great Stories is the role that barack obama played in this regard. Think about four years ago, when you had barack obama, an incumbent president , facing stiff headwinds. He turns to bill clinton, the husband of the woman he defeated in 2008, to be the ultimate validator. He goes out in charlotte and gives one of the great speeches of his life, one of the few speeches that moves the needle. People in the obama camp will say that was one of the most important moments of the entire campaign. Four years later, Hillary Clinton facing headwinds. Who does she turned to . She turned to barack obama, who is able to return the favor to the Clinton Family by going out and giving the speech, which was about him staying to his coalition, you have got to be with her the way you were with me. That is one of the big questions. Will the Obama Coalition turn out . That speech was designed to say to those groups, the stakes are very high. You must be with this woman if you are going to protect my legacy. Thing thatother Donald Trumps advisers believe is that brexit is paralleled with this race. Milestonek at the old , even if you look at the state in pennsylvania and ohio where he cannot get the votes, they believe that is not true. We are looking at a scenario where even the most predictive democratic models do not seem to work for them. Such horribly low ratings among latinos and africanamericans. They still believe it is a moment a movement. They are looking at that as a close parallel. Katy the minority vote in the u. K. Does not compare to the minority vote in the u. S. They do not have that in their favor right now. Charlie quick question about Hillary Clinton. There were a lot of questions about donald trump because he was never specific in terms of what she would do. She seemed to layout goals, but not steps to get there. Give her they did website. I mean, that is exactly right. She laid out the big goals. Many of them perfectly in tune with the goals of the Bernie Sanders movement. She mentioned the platform. Charlie Bernie Sanders was criticized for not being specific. You going to are get there . How are you going to pay for all of this . There were not a lot of specifics. Whatever happened to the National Debt and the budget issue here . Charlie we have not touched on tim kaine and his speech and how he helps her. John i thought that senator kaine i have thought about it a lot. The most important thing