I found it very moving to listen to these friends tell their stories, just as it had been to see Betsy during the roll call. It was like an episode of that old television program This Is Your Life. I was flooded with memories and pride in everything we’d accomplished together.
But none of that prepared me for what Bill had to say when it was his turn to speak.
He looked great up there at the podium, with his distinguished shock of white hair and dignified bearing. “Back where he belongs,” I thought. Four years before, he had masterfully laid out the case for reelecting Barack Obama. This time he left the economic statistics behind and spoke from the heart.
“In the spring of 1971, I met a girl,” he began. I knew right away that this was going to be different. In fact, I don’t think there’s ever been a major political speech like it. Bill talked about how we met and fell in love. “We’ve been walking and talking and laughing together ever since,” he said, “and we’ve done it in good times and bad, through joy and heartbreak.” He took the American people by the hand and walked them down the path of our lives together, with love, humor, and wisdom. He shared private little moments, like the day we dropped Chelsea off at college for the first time. “There I was in a trance just staring out the window trying not to cry,” Bill recalled, “and there was Hillary on her hands and knees desperately looking for one more drawer to put that liner paper in.”
Sitting by myself in the home we’d made together, surrounded by the mementos of our life and love, I felt like my heart was bursting. “I married my best friend,” Bill said. It was like hearing a love letter read out loud on national television.
As soon as the speech wrapped up, I jumped in our van and raced over to a country inn down the road, where a large group of friends and neighbors had gathered. I was positively beaming when I walked in. What a night!
A camera crew was waiting, ready to connect me directly to the arena in Philadelphia. An adorable six-year-old girl named Remie came over and gave me a hug. We were both wearing red, and I complemented her dress as she smiled bashfully. With Remie by my side, I was ready to speak to the convention and the country.
Onstage in Philadelphia, the giant video screen above the arena began flashing the pictures of every previous U.S. President, one white man after another, until finally Barack Obama. Then the screen appeared to shatter into a million pieces, and there I was, live from Crabtree’s Kittle House Restaurant and Inn in Chappaqua. On the convention floor, people held up red and blue placard signs that said, “History.”
I thanked the convention for the incredible honor they’d given me. “And if there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch,” I said, as the camera pulled back to show little Remie and our other friends crowded behind me, “let me just say, I may become the first woman President, but one of you is next.”
I hugged and thanked everyone I could find. I didn’t want to leave, didn’t want the night to end. Later, I heard that social media was buzzing with parents posting pictures of their daughters who had indeed stayed up late to watch, while others shared photos of mothers and grandmothers who hadn’t lived to see this day. A writer named Charles Finch tweeted, “There are days when you believe the arc of history thing.” That’s exactly how it felt: like all of us together were bending the arc of history just a little bit further toward justice.
The next day, I sneaked into Philadelphia so I could make a surprise appearance with President Obama after his speech. He was masterful, of course, and incredibly generous. He talked about what it takes to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office and make life-and-death decisions that affect the whole world, and how I’d been there with him, helping make those hard choices. He looked up at where Bill was sitting and said with a smile, “There has never been a man or a woman—not me, not Bill, nobody—more qualified.” Bill loved it and jumped to his feet and applauded. When Barack finished, I popped out from backstage and gave him a big hug.
Then, on the final day of the convention, it was time for me to give the most important speech of my life. In some ways, this was easier than that night at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I was ready to be the party’s standard-bearer in the battle to come, and I was confident in the vision I wanted to share with the country. I would argue that Americans are always “stronger together,” and that if we worked together, we could rise together. We could live up to our country’s motto, e pluribus unum: “out of many, we are one.” Trump, by contrast, would tear us apart.
We had settled on Stronger Together as our theme for the general election after a lot of thought and discussion. Remarkably, three separate brainstorming processes all led to the same answer. My team in Brooklyn had started with three basic contrasts we wanted to draw with Trump. He was risky and unqualified, but I was steady and ready to deliver results on Day One. He was a fraud who was in it only for himself, but I was in it for children and families and would make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top. He was divisive, while I would work to bring the country together. The challenge was to find a way to marry all three together in a memorable slogan that reflected my values and record. Stronger Together did that better than anything else we could think of.
While the team in Brooklyn worked on this, I asked Roy Spence to spend some time thinking outside the box about campaign themes and messages. Roy is an old friend from the McGovern campaign who started a large ad agency in Austin, Texas. When Jake Sullivan and Dan Schwerin, my director of speechwriting, got on the phone with Roy to exchange notes, they were shocked to hear him propose exactly the same phrase the team in Brooklyn had come up with: Stronger Together. Our top political consultants, Joel Benenson, Mandy Grunwald, and Jim Margolis, also reached the same conclusion independently. Considering how rarely all these smart people agreed on anything, we took it as a sign. Stronger Together it would be.
By the time I got to our convention, I felt even better about this decision. Trump’s “I Alone Can Fix It” speech in Cleveland had provided the perfect foil. The history surrounding us in Philadelphia offered further inspiration. Independence Hall was just a few blocks from our hotel. It was there, 240 years before, that representatives from thirteen unruly colonies transformed themselves into a single, unified nation. It wasn’t easy. Some of the colonists wanted to stick with the King. Some wanted to stick it to the King and go their own way. They had different backgrounds, interests, and aspirations. Somehow they began listening to one another and compromising, and eventually found common purpose. They realized they’d be stronger together than they ever could be on their own.
On Thursday, the last day of the convention, Bill and I sat around the dining room table in our suite at the Logan Hotel, going over a draft of my speech, trying to get it just right. I tried not to think about how many millions of people would be watching and how enormous the stakes would be. Instead, I focused on trying to make my argument as clear and compelling as possible. If I did a good job, and the country saw me without all the usual nonsense getting in the way, the rest would take care of itself. Suddenly, with a squeal of delight, our granddaughter, Charlotte, burst into the room and ran over to us. I put down the draft and chased after her, finally scooping her up in my arms and giving her a kiss. Any tension I’d been feeling drained away in a flash. There was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be other than right there, holding my granddaughter.