Adjunct Fellow  Anne Applebaum

She had only one task: persuade her supporters, a large percentage of whom are telling pollsters they now prefer John McCain, to vote for Barack Obama. She had only one chance: 20 minutes at the Democratic National Convention. Did she manage it?

Well she certainly said everything she was supposed to say. Her very first words after "I'm honoured to be here tonight," were a self description: "A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack Obama."

She called on Democrats--"Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack"--to "unite as a single party with a single purpose". And then, in case anyone didn't get the point, she announced: "Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our President."

She even included an impressively (for her) self-effacing moment. After listing the various things she was fighting for--"clean energy economy . . . health care that is universal . . . restore America's standing in the world"--she then asked her audience, many of whom were once her supporters, whether "you were in this campaign just for me? Or . . . were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids?"

And thus did Hillary Clinton actually imply that her campaign was not about Hillary Clinton, but about America and Americans. This was important: had you been watching her campaign, particularly when it lasted a month too long and felt like an insanely egotistical crusade, you might not have realised that America and Americans were at the heart of it at all.

The trouble with Hillary's speech, is the same thing that has always been the trouble with Hillary's speeches. On paper, it sounded fine, if dutiful. But in delivery, she was stiff and strained.

The hug she gave her daughter, Chelsea, looked rehearsed. The pauses for applause and cheers seemed to have been written into her script. Her smile was fake, her face looked like a mask. And her weirdly lurid orange trouser suit defied explanation.

Did she really mean what she said about Barack Obama? Or was she saying it because she knows she has to, for the sake of her party and her own future career? It was noted afterwards that she failed to describe him as at least well-prepared for the job. His "inexperience", after all, was the central platform of her own campaign.

All told, none of it felt natural, or heartfelt. Only in a week or two, when the opinion polls come out, will we know whether that speech did what it was supposed to do: whether it persuaded blue-collar Americans, the traditional heart of the Democratic party, to vote for Barack Obama, a man whose exotic autobiography is far removed from theirs.

Obama does get one more chance to fight for this key voter group: tonight, in Denver, he provides the symbolic finale to the convention by making his own speech.

And though his task is precisely the same as Hillary's--persuade the blue-collar Democrats, the independent voters, the liberal Republicans, and all of Hillary's voters to support him--the challenge he faces is precisely the opposite.

Unlike Hillary, he is a superb speaker, one who can move crowds unlike any other American politician in a very long time. Unlike Hillary, the words that he uses will seem even more impressive when he utters them.

Obama's problem isn't stiffness, his problem is that his voters haven't known him for long enough, aren't convinced that he is experienced enough, and, yes, are perplexed by that exotic autobiography.

Despite the fuss last spring about the pastor of Obama's church, something like one in 10 Americans is still unaware that Obama is actually a Christian. Equally large percentages surely remain wary of his skin colour, his mixed parentage, or his odd-sounding name.

His job, on the convention's final night, is to convince them that he is a normal, familiar, average American, and yet experienced enough and prepared enough to be president, too. Did Hillary help ease the way? I think she tried, but I'm not sure she succeeded.

Anne Applebaum is an adjunct fellow at AEI.