Joe Biden has now put before us just how he plans to run the final 73 days of his campaign to return to the White House: as an empathetic warrior in touch with families’ struggles and a decent human being counting on character being on the ballot this fall. With that pitch, he planted a contrast with President Donald Trump, whom he cast as an absolute failure in leading the country through the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s a double-barrelled strategy that may well chart a path to success, especially among voters that slipped out of Democrats’ hands four years ago. Biden’s speech was perhaps his finest of his five decades in the public eye, the product of countless rewrites and deft edits. Biden understood this to be the biggest moment of his political career so far and one that demanded near-perfection. He delivered, and if he can maintain this level of discipline, it may give him his dream of the presidency nursed since the 1970s.

Biden’s convention reflected perhaps the biggest tent his Democratic Party has ever attempted to build, leaving open doors for progressive activists’ demands of clean energy, moderates’ worries about lurching too quickly to the left, activists’ pursuits of for racial and gender justice, and seniors’ fears about Social Security. It is a Frankenstein of aspiration as much as necessity, given Biden’s success over rival candidates who drew more energy but fewer votes. It lays the groundwork for gnashing and recrimination if the patchwork fails. But the freakish coalition may be enough to win, especially in the Midwest.