Having run twice, and unsuccessfully, for the presidency, Hillary Rodham Clinton is now an official object lesson in how not to run for political office. No doubt, Clinton was a subpar candidate—especially when compared with her husband—but one strike against her is manifestly unfair: that she had no “message.”

True, in hindsight, her message was not as compelling as Donald Trump’s appeal to working-class voters. And equally true, the hacked emails from Clinton pollster Joel Benenson to campaign colleagues—”Do we have any sense from her what she believes or wants her core message to be?”—make for embarrassing reading. But in fact, Hillary Clinton had three messages: I’m the best-prepared candidate for president in living memory; my opponent is a dangerous alternative; and it’s time for a woman president. Of course, none of them resonated sufficiently with voters—not even the appeal to sisterhood—to overcome Trump, but that’s not the same as their being nonexistent.