Your television provider. Announcer next, correct smith, the author of confessions of a president ial speechwriter. He discusses writing for president s ford and george h. W. Bush. He also evaluates the speaking styles of President Trump and the democratic president ial candidate. The robert dold institute of politics hosted this 50 minute event at the university of kansas. Tonights guest was a fulltime speechwriter for president gerald ford and a consulting writer to george h. W. Bush. Tonight he served as founding president of the freedom of Expression Foundation in washington, d. C. He has won numerous awards for his research, including an award for political communication. It is with pleasure that i welcome dr. Craig smith. Would you please welcome dr. Craig smith. [applause] you have written for some of the most powerful people in the world. Can you tell us a little bit about your early life and how you got to be a president ial speechwriter . Dr. Smith the way i became a president ial speechwriter could only happen in america. I was an undergraduate debater, where i got a lot of training in how to make cases, how to sift evidence and build arguments. I went on for a phd in communication studies, where i focused on aristotle. On the ancients, aristotle, cicero. All of those things are incorporated in the speechwriting craft. I then became a professor of communication studies, focusing on rhetoric and public address. I wound up after starting at san diego state, i wound up at the university of virginia, and i was at the university of virginia in 1976, and i was invited to the university of North Carolina chapel hill to give a guest lecture at 10 00 in the morning. It turned out that gerald ford was lecturing on the campus at noon to the future homemakers of america. [laughter] and so, the liberal faculty turned to me, and i consider myself a legitimate conservative, so rare these days, so we went and we watched gerald fords speech and it was not good. [laughter] so i went back to charlottesville and i could not sleep, so i got up and i wrote a single space, fivepage letter and the next morning i mailed it off to the president , the white house, 1600 pennsylvania avenue, and then i could sleep and i did not think anything would come of it. A week later, i was called by the director of white house personnel and was asked to come up for interview. And when it happened, when the letter came in, someone in the mailroom remembered they just fired a speechwriter. So my letter was sent up to white house personnel. I came up for the interview, i began my interview with him, he then took me to the editor for the speechwriters, i realized that if i screwed up at any point i would be out the front door of the white house. He then took me to the counselor to the president , and we went through a long interview about how i would write speeches if i wrote speeches, so on and so forth. At the end of the interview, he said, can you wait here just a minute . His office was the old office that nixons secretary had, the one that did the rosemary he came back in and he took me into the oval office and there was gerald ford puffing on a pipe. Hartman said, pending security clearance, mr. President , we would like to hire professor smith as your speechwriter. The president said professors have not done well here. [laughter] they tried to make me some more eloquent than i am. I said i am not one of those absentminded professors. I write very quickly and i will be efficient and i will do what i can for you. He said, well just, please make me speak the language of the common man, and that is how i got hired. Starting at the top. I had never written a speech for anybody else but myself. As i said, only in america. You mentioned in the interview, you laid out how you would write for the president. How did that bear out in practice . Did you have to adjust your expectations . And how . Dr. Smith the first thing that happened was, they put me in a broom closet for an office and they said read all of the president s speeches and all of his testimony when he became Vice President and see if you can come up with a style for the president. And i went in after i did all that, and i went into see Robert Hartman and he said, what you think of the president s style . And i said, i dont think he has one. [laughter] it depends on who is writing for him. These are all different things. We have to get consistent with his persona. Well, we have a speech for you. The president have to speak at the Southern Baptist convention in norfolk, virginia following jimmy carter. Jimmy carter, was of course, a bornagain christian and the Southern Baptists loved him. Then you have me, a catholic, writing for the president , and who is an episcopalian, to speak at the Southern Baptist convention. I consulted baptist ministers and worked up a speech and let it sit for a day, and then rewrote it, and then let it sit for a day. And by the way, the art of writing is rewriting. The roosevelt speeches went through 10, 12 drafts. We did not have time for that when ford was president. We went through five drafts. Maybe five or six drafts. The speech was done, he went down to norfork to deliver the speech, and he was three sentences into the speech and he was interrupted by applause. And he was so unused to that, that he lost his place. [laughter] but he recovered quickly and he was interrupted by applause 13 more times during the speech and the Washington Post the next day said president hits homerun in front of the Southern Baptists and my reputation was made. And from then on, i had a bigger hand in the process for writing for the president. How many people would check your work . Vet your work . Dr. Smith the editor would go through it, and once that passed muster, the counselor to the president would go through it. Now some speeches, peggy writes about this in her book, if it is staffing, if a speech is about agriculture policy, it has to go to the Agriculture Department. And they have to check that out and make sure the policy is right. If it is on Foreign Policy, it has to go to the state department. The only problem with that, and peggy makes it very clear with the problem is, whoever gets to do the staffing and see that the policy is right becomes the speechwriter, and they start suggesting things. Why did you use this metaphor . Why dont you say United States instead of america . Suddenly, thatll has to that all has to hartman would say take all of that out, ignore that, just to the policy thing. Then the speech would be delivered and the president would be happy with it, the press would be happy with that, and someone and agriculture and you have someone in the Agriculture Department claimed they wrote the speech. [laughter] he knows about how that works, having been in the cia. You worked with gerald ford during the campaign, how was that different from or was it different writing for gerald ford the president versus gerald ford the campaigner . Dr. Smith yes. Because what you do is adjust the speech to the situation, to the venue. For example, i was in charge of the bicentennial speeches, the six bicentennial speeches duringesident ford gave the campaign, but we did not want use those for political reasons. This was a celebration of the declaration of independence. I wrote the speech i was the main writer on the speech on valley forge, when the president went to monticello, which traditionally every year has a ceremony for immigrants and welcoming them to this country. And that process was very highminded, very much a celebration of the declaration of independence, and we wanted to move it away from the political campaign. When we went over to the arena for the acceptance speech in 1976, that was a political speech. That speech begins on a note where president ford challenged on a very electorate note where president ford challenged jimmy carter to debate him three times and that got a lot of headlines and a lot of tension for that speech. That was a political speech and it was very different. Today, there is more of a melding of the political and statesman side of speeches. How did you connect with george h. W. Bush . How did your relationship start . You worked for him for quite a long time. Dr. Smith yes, i did. As a consulting writer. After we lost the election to carter, i went into exile in alabama. I created a Communication Department at the university of alabama birmingham. And i was yearning to get back into politics. I had potomac fever. Had only been there a year and i had potomac fever. I wanted to go back to washington. So i got on the alabama central committee. At that time, in 1977, only 6 identified as republicans. That is the change we went through in the south. So we needed to raise money and get people to come into birmingham and raise money for the republican party. We asked john connolly, he said no. Ronald reagan, no. That it chance. Not a chance. So we asked george h. W. Bush if he would come over. He was friends with a family, and he agreed to come over. I was at a table at a fundraiser and there was this nerdy, blonde young man next to me, and he said, i understand you were a speechwriter for president ford. I said, yes, i was. He said evaluate this for the table, we wont tell anyone. I said all right. George bush got up and gave the speech and then the nerdy little kid said, what did you think . I said the man is obviously sincere, he is authentic, but he needs organization. There are stylistic devices he can use. He looked at me and said, my name is karl rove. And i work for him. I said oh my gosh, i am sorry. He said how would you like to come up and have a cocktail with him . We heard from gerald ford you are a good writer and he would like to have a word for you. You would like to talk to you. That is how i got on and it was coincidental. Talk more about working with president bush. Dr. Smith george h. W. Bush was my favorite. My favorite client of all time. After that happened, i had to clear with some of his other friends, jennifer fitzgerald, i then i was flown to houston to do another interview at the house. I showed up at the bush mansion in my threepiece suit and the door opens on the side of the house, and out comes george bush in a tshirt and he looks at me and said if you will get out of that silly vest, i will cook you breakfast. And that was the kind of guy he was. He was just magnificent. We go to the kitchen and he gets me a cup of coffee, i took my coat off and my vest off, and he is cooking eggs. In comes barbara bush, she looks at me, she looks at george, she looks at me, she looks at george and says george, if that man spills a drop of that coffee on the floor i will never forgive you because the chinese delegation is coming in to stay with us tonight for dinner. I dont know what got into me, but i looked at her and said maam, i came to your door in a threepiece suit, i dont spill anything. [laughter] and she laughed, he laughed, and i spent the rest of the day with them. Those were the kind of people they were. I mean they were just he was such a gentleman. He was so highminded and so wonderful to work with, she was so supportive of the staff, very protective of him, and that is understandable. But she was on the side of the better angels who were around george bush, or around any president , there are also some darker angels, and you have to fight with them. That is always fun. But they were wonderful people. Did you ever see what you thought was a good speech go bad . So to speak . Dr. Smith none of mine [laughter] of course not. I cant think of one, actually. I mean, there were glitches. There was one time president ford was delivering a speech i wrote in the white house, and it in the east room of the white house, and it was for the pennsylvania delegation on the way to the convention. And the pennsylvania delegation as you may recall was up for grabs, and eventually Ronald Reagan would name a senator has as his Vice President ial candidate trying to steal the delegation. Ford got up to give the speech and he suddenly deviated from the text to tell a personal story, which she rarely did. Then he went back to the text. I had written the personal story in the text, so he repeated it. Everyone knew what happened. But then he recovered and he laughed and he went on. Eventually, Nelson Rockefeller got up, applauded and got him off the stage. He got away with that. Did youspeechwriter, have input over the venue or any of the other production details . Dr. Smith once you get credibility as a speechwriter, the glory of it is you can sometimes influence policy. And i began to suggest certain campaign changes that the president speak less, but speak on certain topics very in depth. Because i thought his strength was on the issues, whereas carters strength was transcendent. Im never going to lie to you, im religious, and so on and so forth. There was a debate over my proposal between various people in front of the president and the president said i am going with what crag wants. Craig wants. It was stunning. He wrote me a note. He said thank you for that suggestion. The note said when we win this election, i will move you to the political division, which would have been nice, but we did not win the election. [laughter] but you can gain influence as a speechwriter that way, but you have to be credible first. You have to have successful speeches. What would you say was perhaps the biggest challenge for some of the biggest or some of the Biggest Challenges related to writing for the president . Dr. Smith it is a collaborative operation. The speechwriters want the president to be as effective as possible. The political people want him to say what adjusts to the poll data. And so, there is a tension between those two things. Think certain things should be said in a certain way, some things should be said a different way. There is always that tension, but i talked to a friend of mine who was a writer for richard nixon, and the nixon people the writers were very good adapting to the poll data. Nixon had a 24 hour Polling Group in 1968. And the poll question was what was the most important problem facing america . And once the person answered, they went to a second step and asked what was the suggested solution . And so, in 1968, number one was vietnam, number two was the economy, number three was crying. The suggested solutions were, in vietnam, have the people, relatively, wanted to withdraw and half the people wanted to escalate. So what the nixon writers did for his acceptance speech is, he spent four long paragraphs on the problem of vietnam, meeting the expectation of the audience, but he does not suggest a solution, because the audience is divided. He said because we are in negotiation and paris, i cant negotiation in paris, i cant undercut our operations, but i promise you peace with honor. So he transcended the division. Then when he went to the economy, it is one short paragraph on the problem and a lot of solutions, because he has got 75 of the audience on his side, same thing with crime. And so, people were nodding as they went through that. Then at the end of that speech, if you ever flash back to it, there is a wonderful at the end about hearing trains at the night and the American Dream and nixon comes to embody the American Dream. So the speechwriters get to go full force at the end of the speech by giving into the pollsters at the beginning of the speech. Those are the kinds of things and negotiations that are exciting and difficult. But when everything clicks together, it is really wonderful. Our last program, we talked about five great president ial speeches. Would you weigh in on what might be your greatest president ial speech . In your estimation . Dr. Smith for me, i think the second inaugural of lincoln is really wonderful. Because it is compassionate, it is healing, calling for bringing the country together. You know, i just think that is a wonderful address. I think one of the addresses that is probably a little underrated is jeffersons first inaugural. The election had been horribly bitter between jefferson and john adams. And the federalists and the antifederalists, all kinds of dirty politics had gone on. If you think it is bad now, it was really bad back then. And jefferson said it one point, point, we are all federalists, we are all antifederalists. He tries to bring the country together and unite it. What speech of yours is your favorite . Dr. Smith i think the speech during the bicentennial at valley forge, where i start by talking about the soldiers surviving in their rag bound feet around the fires, starving and eventually surviving at valley forge. But then looking forward to what that tells us about sacrifice and how sacrifice has worked for america, particularly for its soldiers, and how we need to honor that moving forward. That as we move forward. I was very proud of that speech. We talked about speech running during a campaign in for a sitting president. And for a sitting president. You have written speeches or language for people involved in debates. How does that relate to speechwriting and what is your preparation like . Dr. Smith the debate thing is an entirely different world. It is very difficult. And i coached the president for the debates, along with other people. I actually coached dan quayle for his debate in 1988, and i can tell you about that experience. [laughter] but you just dont know what is going to happen. And it is all about the expectation game. When ford went into the first debate with carter, the expectation was ford would lose because carter was this Nuclear Engineer when he went to annapolis. Ford tended to mumble here and there and mispronounced words. Ford came out of that debate beating expectations and carter and suddenly the race was dead even. Then we went to the second debate, we knew questions would be on Foreign Policy, it was at the palace of the arts in san francisco. And we prepped the president. Ronald reagan criticized fords policy with of detente with the soviet union. We knew that was going to be in question. The question came from the New York Times and the reporter said president ford, how would you defend your policy with the soviet union when they are such a brutal nation . Your policy of detente with the soviet union when they are such a brutal nation . Ford said look, yugoslavia has never given into them. Romania is moving toward freedom. They dont dominate poland. He went on. Then he had a followup. Did you said the soviet union does not dominate poland . The president said yes, that is what i said. After the debate, we ran up to the president and said you said the soviet union does not dominate poland. You need to hold a press conference and immediately say you misspoke. He said, but i did not say that. We said, what do you think you said . What we rehearsed. What was that, mr. President . The soviet union does not dominate the hearts and minds of the polish people. I said, i wish you had said that. [laughter] Henry Kissinger came up and said what is going on . We explained the situation, and the president immediately needs to hold a press conference and say he misspoke and kissinger said you cant do that. I am trying to get that man out of the soviet union. If you insult the soviet union, our talks will collapse. Long story short, they debated him for five days and finally in california, ford corrected the record, but it was too late. The election slipped away. So these debates are just mindbogglingly tents. Tense. When we rehearsed the debates with dan quayle, his colleague stood person who in for lloyd benson from the finance committee, bob packwood, stood in. In the debates we did with the inkwell, he did very well. With dan quayle, he did very well. Dan quayle got into the senate by winning a debate against someone who is no slouch. We thought he would be ok when he went into the debate with lloyd benson. But during our practice session, Marilyn Quayle interrupted what was going on and said, you need to tell them you are more qualified than john kennedy was when he was running for president. You are just running for Vice President. And lee atwater was there and said you cant say that, you cant compare yourself to john kennedy. They are saying he is a martyr. Whatever you do, dont do that. He goes forward and we were all sitting out there watching what is happening and outcomes dan quayle. Robert rowland can tell you this, if you are a debate coach, you have seen this. Your debaters for the first time get into a final round, and it is like deer in the headlights. They are just stunned. They cannot say anything right. And so for the first few questions, dan quayle is not the is a little discombobulated and not the guy we have seen in these reversals. Because it is the bright lights and the big audience, but he recovers and gets going. Then comes the inevitable question. What is the first thing you would do if the president were incapacitated . Well, we had rehearsed if the president died. Big difference. If the president is incapacitated, you have to bring the cabinet together, vote that the president is incapacitated, get a temporary president , so on and so forth. It is a different question than we had expected. We took one of the mentors advice and dodged the question. You really need to ask them i qualified to be president , and he gave his qualifications. Somebody said, that was not the question we asked before. The question we asked you before was what if the president is incapacitated . He dodged it again. Then tom brokaw said, do you know what you would do if the president is incapacitated . And dan coyle said dan quayle said, im more qualified now than john kennedy was when he was elected. Of course lloyd benson said you could see him licked his lips. Lick his lips. Now we were like, what is going to happen with the poll data . Had no impact on the election, believe it or not. The media made a big deal out of it. I think its just people just dont vote for Vice President. They vote for president. We got off on that one. But debates are really tough to coach. The other one was, i helped with george w. Bush in the 1984. He was Vice President. You may recall he debated geraldine ferraro. That is a very tough thing to do. It is tough on women, because they face a binary. If they are tough, then that has a bad word associated with it. If they are soft, they are not up to the presidency. And so, handling that situation for a woman is very difficult, and i have coached some women in debates. On the other hand, when we were coaching george h. W. Bush, we told him he had to be careful. You dont want to be mean to your female opponent. At the same time, you want to establish yourself as an expert. So we recommended that he simply answer the questions and always look forward and not respond or direct anything to geraldine ferrero. And that worked until three quarters of the way through the debate, and she said something about Foreign Policy that did not make sense to him. And suddenly he turned and said, let me help you with that, geraldine. And then answer the question. So we had this mansplaining moment. We all went, oh my god. So i mean, dont blame the coaches. [laughter] so other tense situations did you ever do any writing for Crisis Response . How is the process different . Mr. Smith it is very different. Dr. Smith it is very different. At one point in the Ford Administration in 1976, cambodia seized a merchant marine vessel. And i was on vacation, and my pager went off. They said, you have to get back to the white house. We need your help on this one. We are writing a speech for the president. He is going to deliver it from the oval office to the nation. All this other stuff is going on in the situation room. How are we going to respond . It was a very different writing erience, because i was what are we going to do . And then how is the president going to express that to the nation . And the response kept changing. So i had to keep changing the speech and rewriting it and rewriting it, but there was nothing political about this. There was nothing in terms of you know, there could be some patriotism involved, but it was really just to inform the public not to panic, we are doing something about this, and eventually we actually seized the ship and special forces did a terrific job. And then writing that. We always try to keep those things out of the political arena. Because if you get those things into the political arena, you then sully them, and they are open to attack from the other side. It becomes a political football. I have no problem with somebody attacking the handling of this. If the president mishandled it or we are in a war we should not be in, but the announcement of a crisis i think is rather pristine and objective and should be isolated from the political world. In our program last week, we talked about how a president who is a successful speech deliver can craftwriter broader narratives. Were you able to do that relatively early in your time with the ford presidency and the bush presidency, or is that something that you felt evolved over time . Dr. Smith i think it evolved over time. One of the things that you try to work out is what is the delivery style that works best for these people as you are crafting this narrative of where they are going . The statement Robert Hartman wrote for ford just after he was sworn in, that the long dark nightmare for america is over. That was a wonderful moment. And that was the narrative. That established the narrative. We are going to make a comeback. America is going to make a comeback. Were going to bounce off watergate. Were going to bounce off the off vietnam, and bring america back. And the bicentennial was a wonderful excuse to do that. But in terms of style, barack obama, for example, focuses on what we call jargon, the periodic style. This is the march of paragraphs across the page. Lincoln had it. Of the people, by the people, for the people. Barack obama was very compatible with that because of the black pulpits he had in his lifetime. He had experienced in his lifetime. Bill clinton was very different. Bill clinton was talking to you all the time. Very conversational style. You were in his living room. Ronald reagan had the same style. So finding that style for your candidate, your client, is very different for each of them. And with ford, it was very plainspoken. With bush, h w bush, when i started working with him, i realized he was a very kind man, a very gentle man. And that was part of the narrative. That he was sophisticated, very witty. And so, in 1980, i wrote a speech for him that he delivered in philadelphia during the primary, which we eventually one, and won, and it was called a different kind of president. In there, there was a line about how he wanted to create a kinder, gentler nation. And the speech got ruined because bushs press secretary snuck a line into the speech that reagan economics was voodoo economics. And so, everybody remembered the voodoo economics. When you are a speechwriter, it is very frustrating when people do that to your speeches. And so, that was the tension and the line got forgotten. So one he so when he got to 1988, and he was accepting the nomination, i got that line back in, the kinder, gentler nation. And that was one of the lines that was remembered. But the other line that was member was Peggy Noonans read my lips, no new taxes. You have the top guy and the kinder, gentler bush. Luckily, he still won the election, but often if you look at these speeches, you can see they have more than one writer and more than one tone. And that should not happen. They should be consistent. Two more questions and we will turn it over to the audience. Second to last, what did being a president ial speechwriter teach you about the presidency . Dr. Smith that it is a collaborative effort. That it is a team effort. That you are only as good as the staff around you. That the president has to make a call at some point. The president has to say im going with these people, im going with this advice, and that then redounds on the president. And that is why the president is responsible for the speech the speechwriters write, because he has these choices he has to make. You know, god help us if we ever have a president who does not surround himself with good people. [laughter] god help us if we ever have a president who fires the good people and keeps the bad people. [laughter] learned aat is what i long time ago and i think we may be learning now. Ms. Coleman looking back, you wrote for the bicentennial. We are coming up on our semiquincentinial, 250 year anniversary. Since the birth of america. If you are going to write a semiquincentinial speech, are there any themes you would want to hit on . Dr. Smith one of the things that was so successful for the six bicentennial speeches is the president said i want them to be like chapters of a book, i want them to all be integrated. I think that worked very well. He gave us that guidance. We were each given a little book at the end of the bicentennial, and one of the sweetest moments i had in the white house was at the end of the bicentennial speeches, the president gave us the president ial yacht for the night. And we sailed down the potomac. This was a historic yacht. This was where Franklin Roosevelt and churchill had had conferences. Nixon retreated to the yacht when he wanted to get away from everybody. So, we were on this, and it goes down the potomac toward the atlantic, and it stops at mount vernon, and it swings around, and they play the national anthem. It just absolutely brings tears to your eyes. Then you have dinner as they come back up and dock by the washington monument. I mean, that was just incredible. And i hope whoever is in charge when we do the 250 years has that kind of attitude, that this is a celebration of american values, and that we look at these values and display the values that we talk about, we not only refer to them but display the values we talk about. Ms. Coleman thank you. Questions from the audience. A student will come to you. Weve got one up here, olivia. When president ford asked you to make him sound like the common man, did that cause you to write his speeches as if you were the one that was speaking it . Did you consider yourself representative of the common man . Dr. Smith there is a lot of me that i think identifies with the common man. I came out of the lower middle class. My father was a navy man. He started as a sailor. He was blown off his ship at pearl harbor and swam to shore and survived. And i think we, men have an appreciation of that. Ford had served. H. W. Had served. He was the youngest pilot in world war ii. And so, speaking the language of the common man, i think, is something i could resonate with, but let me tell you something, i think Franklin Roosevelt spoke the language of the common man. And what that means is, youre not using highfalutin words. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. How simple can you get . Those are all small works. Small words. It is the rhythm and the alliteration that makes that memorable. We should never negotiate in fear, but we should never fear to negotiate. John kennedy. All small words. It is the chiasmus that makes that memorable. You can speak the language of the common man and at the same time be memorable and actually heroic and probably more sublime than if you try to be eloquent and use big words that turn people off. Ms. Coleman other questions . Here in the back. Just kind of curious, in the fraternity of president ial speechwriters, im curious do you have any professional or any kind of contact with the persons that write speeches for donald trump . If you do, im interested to hear their challenges, their reactions to his rogue style and is that exciting for them or a completely frustrating experience as a speechwriter . Dr. Smith thank you for the question. Im not in contact with them, but i follow them. Steve miller is the chief writer. Whenever you think of steve miller and the words he is putting in the president s mouth, steve miller is a talented speechwriter. If you look at the speech that donald trump gave at the accepting the nomination at the Republican Convention, it was 75 minutes long, which was probably 25 minutes too much. It needed to be edited, but it was a very clever speech. The Republican Convention every day had a different theme, and it was based on the make America Great again theme. Everything was unified. Trump got up to close the convention with his acceptance speech, and the last four lines of his speech were the same as those four days. Make america safe again, work again, great again. That worked very well, i thought, in terms of effectiveness. Im not talking about the morality of it. The problem you would have if you were a speechwriter for trump is that very often, he does not stick to the text and does not have one. At his rallies, which are kind of populist, in the old paranoid style that hofstetter talked about, that is just trump spouting off and doing what he does that some of his audiences like. The inaugural address is very dark, and miller wrote it that way, because they wanted to say these are dark times, now we are going to make America Great again. Its got to be better than what we are describing here. So than the speeches from then on are trying to build this up. So then the speeches from then on are trying to build this up. If you look at the state of the union addresses, the strategy is really interesting. In 1988, Ronald Reagan gave his last state of the union address. Right before it, a plane had taken off in january, the icing had not come off the wings. The plane went into the 14th street bridge and crashed into the potomac river. A young man got off the banks, jumped into the iced river, and started pulling people out. When reagan got up to give his state of the union address, he invented recognizing people in the galley. He recognized that one person as an american hero. From that point on, every president has recognized someone in the galley. Trump has had 10 or 15 people in the galley. What does it do . It distracts from a lot of the policy stuff that he is laying out, but it also, if you are a democrat sitting in the audience and you dont want to apply for this president and he is to a hero in the galleries and you are caught on camera not a plotting, you are in real not a plotting not applauding, you are in trouble. That is the strategy. It is clever. I am talking about the rhetorical effectiveness. I think they have a hard job writing for trump. I think it would be mind blowing to try and keep him on track. Because when he is on the teleprompter and doing what steve miller tells him to do, they are effective speeches. And when he is on his own, he says things that are sometimes unverifiable, a nice way to put it. [laughter] ms. Coleman other questions . Up here. I have two, possibly. The first one relates to your comment about president ford. And you had shared that he mentioned to you that if he won, he would move you to his political group, and of course, that did not happen. My question there is, have you had a moment in your career where you felt like you really were able to shoehorn in and maybe get a little bit of your politics inserted into the message . The message that you were helping someone else deliver . Dr. Smith yeah. One of the things i was in favor of was using our agricultural surpluses instead of burning them or dumping them in the ocean, or letting all the milk away so the prices would go up and create a food bank, and take those things to africa or asia or wherever they are needed. The president said we would do that right after the election, which was nice. You know . But if you get to a credible point with a president , with your client, you can influence policy. You know, i have worked for many other people. The shortest president ial campaign ever probably was people sins pete wilsons campaign, the governor of california, i was the only writer there. That is the difference between the campaign and the president. The president has five speechwriters. Elizabeth warren probably only has one. Pete wilson only had one. George h. W. Bush during the campaign from 1978 to 1980, he only had one or two. If you get the trust and have a good idea, you get input into policy. And that is really a wonderful benefit of the job when it works out. Did you have a second question . Ms. Coleman we will come back. Olivia. Just curious, if you were writing speeches today, social media being a tool, use it, not use it . What do you think of it . Dr. Smith you have got to use it. And hopefully you can use it for good. I think social media, there is a lot of problems with it. And we all know what they are. But if you consider it like chemistry, that it can be used for good or evil, you need to get in that mix and figure out how to do it. Barack obama was very effective with social media. The president is very effective with tweets. He gets past the media. People who believe in him and want to be affirmed just look at his two weeks his tweets ad and nobody elses. That is one of the problems we have with all the media and cable, if i believe something crazy, i can find somebody else out there that is also saying the same thing somewhere and affirm myself. That is the problem we have with social media. It is much harder now to break through as a speechwriter, to get your candidate to break through all the social media and all the affirmation that is going on. If people are watching these democratic debates, and it looks like they are, that is a way to break through. I mean, you can have a good debate like Amy Klobuchar did in the last one. You can have a good town hall meeting like Pete Buttigieg did early on, and suddenly you are there. Where you were not there before. So they are breaking through. But if i were advising a campaign, i would have a Strategy Group on social media and how to use them. Because if you dont, you are excluding a whole audience that you could be reaching in some way. Hi. You alluded briefly to writing for women. I was just curious, if you were writing for a female president , would you approach that any differently from the way you did with previous male president s . Dr. Smith i think you have to because of the binary that women face, and you have to be sensitive to it. One of the things that i would do, you will notice, for example, you have not seen a female democrat candidate, correct me if i am wrong, wear a dress in any of these debates. They are all in pants suits, and some variation of that, and that is to make them more manly, more president ial. I once advised senator Paula Hawkins from florida on what to wear, and it was a black pants suit with white piping so that she was defined, and she did very well in her debate. One of the things that are attributed to women that you want to avoid, emotionalism. So lets have a very factbased, policy oriented, highly documented approach. I think that is what they told elizabeth warren. And she has done well on that on occasion. Unfortunately, she has contradicted herself or changed her position on medicare for all, and that got her in trouble. But that is where she was going. It was that. Now Amy Klobuchar, when she has been successful, she contradicts le a little bit, but it was heartfelt and seemed authentic when she stated i see you and identified with her audience. That was effective. It was a risk, but it worked. And so, there are just things that you want to go through, if i were writing for a woman, it would be factbased, argument based, very organized. Because you are not supposed to be able to read a map. [laughter] so, you know, which is nonsense. But you want no roaming around. And so, it would be along those lines. Ms. Coleman we have time for two more here. I know when i am writing, i have moments when i cannot put a word on a page. As a writer yourself, especially with these issues that are so with these speeches that are so important, how do you go about having Writers Block and handling that pressure . Dr. Smith it is an excellent question. And i am one of those strange people who have never had Writers Block. I dont know what it is. [laughter] but the advice i give is the advice Ernest Hemingway gave. Ernest hemingway had Writers Block for a long time. Writed what he did was to one important true sentence and then write back to it. Wife is a novel that his mary published against his wishes after he was dead, called the garden of eden. Story. Ased on a short of the first chapter is, and then he could never love her again, and the whole chapter leads up to that, and when you read that line, it hits you like somebody slapped you in the face. Writersend, if you get block, try to write one important sentence and everything will flow after that. Right here. If you could write one more president ial speech, what would , the state of the union and why . Write and love to inaugural address. I would like to call people to the values i believe in. I think they calling people to those values and then displaying those values, living by those values, practicing what you preach, setting the tone for the whole four years of the presidency would be a wonderful thing to do. I would certainly use the link and inaugurals as my model. Excellent question, and way to end our conversation. Thank you for being with us. [applause] before you leave tonight, you book,ck up a copy of his confessions of a professional speechwriter. There is a holiday coming up that you may want to buy a gift for. Here is your answer. Next tuesday,eek, february 18. We are going to have another discussion. Comparinglk about president s Ronald Reagan and barack obama, and we are all excited for that. Thank you for coming. We look forward to seeing you next week. [applause] during this season, the candidates be on the talking points are only revealed over time, but since you cant see everywhere, there is cspan. Programming 2020 differs from all coverage for one simple reason. We brought you your unfiltered view of government every day since 1979. This year, we are bringing you and unfiltered view of people seeking to steer that government this november. In other words, your future. This election season, go deep, direct, and unfiltered. See the biggest picture for yourself and make up your Room Campaign cspans 2020, brought to you as a Public Service by your television provider. Cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Morning, discussing the campaign 2020. Than the 2020 Nevada Democratic presses, with associated political reporter michelle price. Watch live at 7 00 eastern saturday morning. Join the discussion. California governor gavin newsom delivered the annual state of the state address in sacramento. He spoke about the States Economic growth, climate change, health care, and homelessness. From the status and we chamber, this state assembly chamber, this is 45 minutes. [applause] newsom thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you