The tone was conciliatory but make no mistake, Nicola Sturgeon’s speech to the SNP conference was the drawing of referendum battle lines.
“I hope you will forgive me because my speech this afternoon is not really aimed at you,” she told the crowd in Aberdeen.
The venue was the Nationalist conference but the presentation was an address by the First Minister, not the party leader.
It’s a small but very significant difference. A second independence referendum, if it happens, has the potential to be exceptionally nasty given what is at stake.
This was Sturgeon reaching out to the small group who will decide any future vote.
Those people who, in Sturgeon’s own words, are “feeling nervous and anxious, perhaps even resentful” about the prospect of going through the long-running, sometimes bitter debates all over again.
The speech was the start of a charm campaign where Sturgeon will seek to present herself as being entirely reasonable, especially when compared with a Prime Minister she accused of “condescension and inflexibility” towards the Scottish Government.
I know it could be tough, she intimated, but can things really be any worse than they are at the moment?
Of course, the promise to speak “frankly” about the economic challenges was followed by a warning to opponents not to “run down Scotland’s strengths and our nation’s great potential”.
Some rhetoric will remain the same.
It was a speech all about inclusion, with very little domestic policy. It was a pitch to those who might be undecided on independence that her vision for the country is inclusive, reflecting their views.
It was also a warning to her own side not to become embroiled in the kind of nonsense that raised people’s hackles last time around.
The packed out conference centre loved it, with hands slapping together enthusiastically and flags unfurled.
Don’t let that fervour mask the big question Nicola Sturgeon will be asking herself tonight, though.
Did her words resonate with Scotland’s constitutionally agnostic centre-ground?
