Donald Trump's announcement speech stands as a perfect example of why using a professional speech writer is vital to making a candidate's views coherent to voters and giving an elevated, Statesmanlike tone to a campaign, especially on the Federal level.
While managing and advising campaigns, I've found that wealthy candidates (and particularly, self-funding candidates like Trump) believe they have a "right" to simply spew forth whatever is contained in their brain at the moment. Trump's announcement speech demonstrates why this approach is horribly, disastrously wrong.
The fact that he apparently had a beautifully written, 20-minute prepared speech that he chucked at the last minute tells me he doesn't take professional advice, which speaks volumes about his character and his attitude towards taking advice from others.
How does he expect to govern if he doesn't take advice? Well, he actually tells us: He's going to bully China, bully Putin, bully Mexico, bully the CEO of Ford.
Not that we shouldn't stand up to them all, and the sad thing is that he isn't RIGHT when he says that 'free trade' deals have been detrimental to our economy, but he must bring Congress and the American people along with him. And he does that that with the proper tone and the correct political rhetoric that inspires us to come along with him.
Listening to a blowhard at a coffee shop or a bar blow off steam with irrational "bomb them all" language and simple, but wrong-headed, solutions is one thing, and can easily be excused as the ramblings of someone who hasn't studied any of these issues in depth.
But a presidential candidate isn't simply making thoughtless statements in a coffee shop, he's placing himself into history.
And that makes hearing a self-obsessed braggart make arrogant bloviations from a presidential announcement podium is historically inexcusable.
Unless Donald Trump now gives a series of serious, scripted policy speeches in the coming weeks - which is extremely unlikely - his candidacy is doomed, and it was a long shot to begin with, so he'd better start listening to people.
