CLEVELAND — The theme of Monday’s opening night of the Republican National Convention was “Make America Safe Again.” In other words, “Make America Safe from Hillary Clinton.”

Donald Trump, who will accept his party’s nomination Thursday, was barely mentioned by many of the speakers, nor were specifics of the few concrete proposals he has made.

The focus instead was on presumptive Democratic nominee Clinton and Republican fears that she would extend President Barack Obama’s two terms in office.

Criticism of the other side, of course, is always part of the convention lineup. But successful conventions typically have a point - to send a strong message to the Americans who will decide the next president.

Sometimes the candidate needs to be humanized. Sometimes gaps of knowledge need to be filled in. At the least, each convention night provides an hour - more on cable stations - of free TV coverage to convey a consistent message.

By that standard, the first night of Donald Trump’s convention was less than fully successful - scattershot in its message and undisciplined in its delivery.

Indeed, the most disciplined moment may have been Trump’s own extremely brief introduction of his wife, Melania.

The evening did have dramatic high points. Bereft parents whose children had been killed by immigrants in the country illegally spoke emotionally. Trump himself appeared, backlit on stage before introducing his wife.

But the night lacked the thematic unity that usually marks a successful production.

Despite the ostensible message of safety, the shootings of and by police that have riveted the nation in recent weeks were barely mentioned, except for in praise of the police. Only one speaker, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, even mentioned civilian deaths and that came amid a screaming, arm-flailing defense of law enforcement.

More than a dozen speakers spent far more time on criticism of Clinton and Obama than on any sustained effort to explain the direction that Trump would take beyond generalities attesting to his toughness. Even that message was somewhat undercut as Melania Trump talked of her husband’s big heart and cast him as a softie.

Other speakers used language and images of the sort that have tormented the Republican Party in its efforts to expand its reach among general election voters, who are less conservative and less white than those who dominate GOP primaries.

One speaker, actor Scott Baio, pointedly said that being American “doesn’t mean getting free stuff,” the precise wording that Republicans have used to characterize the government programs that they contend poor and minority Democrats abuse. That came before Melania Trump asserted that her husband planned “new programs to help the poor.”

Others referred to “illegal aliens,” a term offensive to many Latinos, a group that Republicans promised to focus on after they lost the last election and before Trump fueled his campaign with talk of building a huge wall on the Mexican border and used the terms “murderers” and “rapists” to describe Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S. illegally.

Lengthy speeches were devoted to the attack on the U.S. mission in Libya in 2012, when Clinton served as secretary of State. That issue remains a potent one among core Republican voters, but after myriad investigations into Benghazi, most of those voters are probably already in Trump’s camp.

Among the headline speakers, only one, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, overtly reached out to voters who did not participate in the Republican primaries.

“My generation is willing to fight so that our children might live in peace,” said Cotton, who served as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. “And for that cause, I speak tonight not only to Republicans, but to the millions of Independents and Democrats who share that dream and who wish to make America safe again.”