Craig smith. [applause] a pleasure to see you. Thank you for being here tonight. Nice to be back in lawrence. You have written for the most powerful people in the world. Tell us about your early life and more about how you get to be a president ial speechwriter. 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, how to sift evidence, how to build arguments. I then went on to Communication Studies where i focused on the ancients, cicero on oratory, then institute of oratory, all those things are incorporated in the speechwriting craft. I then became a professor of Communication Studies focusing on rhetoric and public address, wound out after starting at San Diego State at the university of virginia. I was at the university of virginia in 1976. I was invited to the university of North Carolina of chapel hill to give a guest lecturer at 10 00 in the morning. Turned out gerald ford was lecturing on the campus at noon to the future homemakers of america. And so the liberal faculty turned to me. I consider myself a legitimate conservative. So rare these days. So we went and watched gerald fords, and it was not good. So i went back to charlottesville and i couldnt sleep. I got up and wrote a singlespaced, 5page letter. The next morning i mailed it off to the president , the white house, 1600 pennsylvania avenue. That i could sleep and didnt think anything more would come of it. A week later i was called by the director of white house personnel and was asked to come up for an interview. What had happened was when the letter came in someone in the mailroom remembered that they had just fired his speechwriter. My letter was sent up to white house personnel. I came up for the interview. I began my interview with him. He took me to the editor for the speechwriters. I realized i had screwed up at any point i would be out the front door of the white house. He then took me to bob hartman, counselor to the president , and we went through a long interview how i would write speeches, if i wrote speeches and he said can you wait here just a minute . It was the old office that nixons secretary had, the one who did the rosemary stretch. He came back in and took me into the oval office and there was gerald ford puffing on a pipe. Pending security clearance, we would like to hire professor smith as your new speechwriter. The president said professors havent done very well here. They tried to make me sound more eloquent than i am and i am not one of those absentminded professors. I write very quickly, i will do what i can for you. He said just make me speak the language of the common man. That is how i got hired. Starting at the top. I had never written a speech for anybody else but myself. Only in america. You mentioned in the interview you laid out your process by which you would write for the president. How does that bear out in practice . If you have to adjust your expectations and how . The first thing that happened was they put me in a broom closet for an office and said read all the president s speeches and testimony when he became Vice President and see if you come up with a style for the president. I went in after i did all that to see robert hartman. He said what do you think of the president s style . I said i dont think he has one. It depends on who is ready for him. These are all different things. We have to get consistent with his persona. They said we have speech for you. The president has to speak at the Southern Baptist convention in norfolk, virginia, following jimmy carter. Jimmy carter was a bornagain christian, the Southern Baptists loved him. What happens is you have me, a catholic, writing for a president who is an episcopalian to speak at the Southern Baptist convention. I consulted baptist ministers and worked up this speech and let it sit for a day, rewrote it, let it sit for a day, the art of writing is rewriting, always rewrite. The roosevelt speeches went to 10, 12 draft. We didnt have time for that when ford was president. We went through five or six draft. He went to norfolk to deliver the speech. He was three sentences into the speech and was interrupted by applause. He was so unused that he lost his place. But he recovered quickly and was interrupted by applause 13 times during the speech. The Washington Post the next day said the president hits home run in front of the Southern Baptist. My reputation was made it. From then on i had a bigger hand in the process. How many people had your work . Basically the editor would go through it and once that passed muster, bob hartman, counselor to the president would go through it. Some speeches, peggy noonan writes about this in her book, it is called staffing. Speeches on agricultural policy, it has to go through the Agriculture Department and they have to check that out and make sure the policy is right. If it is on foreignpolicy goes to the state department. The only thing about that, peggy makes clear what the problem is. Whoever does the staffing, and sees that the policy is right, they start suggesting things. Why dont you use this metaphor . Why dont you say United States instead of america . That all hartman would take take all that out, ignore that. Just do policy things. The speech would be delivered. The president would be happy with it. The press would be happy with it. Someone in the Hawley Department claiming they wrote the speech. He knows about how that works having been in the cia, and advisor to all that. Excuse me. You worked with gerald ford during the campaign. How is that different between writing for gerald ford, the president , versus the campaign or . You are just the speech to the situation, to the venue. For example, i was in charge of the bicentennial speeches that president ford gave during that campaign. We didnt want to use those for political purposes. This is a celebration of the declaration of independence. I was the main writer of the speech at valley forge, i mean writer when the president went to monticello which traditionally has a ceremony for immigrants and welcoming them to this country. [laughter] that process was very highminded, very much a celebration of the declaration of independence. We wanted to move away from the political campaign. When we came over to the arena for the acceptance speech in 1976 that was a political speech. That speech begins on a very electric note where president ford challenged jimmy carter to debate him three times which got a lot of headlines and attention for that speech. That was a political speech and was very different. Today there is more of a melding for the political and the statesman speeches. How do you connect with George H W Bush . You worked with him for quite a long time. As a consulting writer. After we lost the election closely to carter i went into exile in alabama. I created a Communications Department at the university of alabama birmingham. I was yearning to get back into politics. I had only been there a year and wanted to get back to washington. I got back on the alabama central committee. At that time in 1977 only 6 of alabamians identified as republicans. That is the change we have gone through in the south. We needed to raise money and get people to come into birmingham and raise money for the republican party. We asked chuck connolly. He said no, not a chance, Ronald Reagan row, not a chance. We asked George H W Bush if he would come over. He was friends with the family there, he agreed to come over. I was at a table at this fundraiser and there was this nerdy kind of blonde young man next to me. He said i understand you were a speechwriter for president ford. Yes, i was. Why dont you evaluate this for the table. We wont tell anybody. All right. George bush got up and gave the speech, and then the dirty little kid what do you think of this . I said the man is obviously sincere, authentic but needs organization, stylistic devices he could use. He looked at me and said my name is karl rove and i work with him. Oh my gosh, im sorry. No, no, no, how would you like to have a talk with him . We heard from gerald ford that you are a good writer and he would like to talk with you. That is how i got on with him. Lets talk about working with president bush. George h w bush was my favorite client of all time. After that happened, i had to clear with some of his other friends, jennifer fitzgerald. That i was flown to houston to do another interview at the house. I showed up at the bush in my three piece suit. The door opened from the side of the house and outcomes george bush in a tshirt. He looks at me and said if you will get out of that silly vest i will cook you breakfast. That was the kind of guy he was, just magnificent. We went into the kitchen and he gives me a cup of coffee and im standing there with a cup of coffee, took my coat off. He is cooking eggs. Incomes barbara bush. She looks at me and looks at george and looks at me and then looks at george and she says george, if that man still to drop a copy of 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 said i came to your door in a 3piece suit. I wont spill anything. She laughed and he laughed and i spent the rest of the day with them. Those were the kind of people they were. They were just, he was such a gentleman and so highminded and wonderful to work with and she was so supportive of the staff, very protective of him. That is understandable. She was on the side of the better angels that were around george bush, around any president , there are darker angels you have to fight with and 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 . Not none of mine because of course i cant think of one. There were glitches. There was one time president ford was delivering a speech that i wrote in the east room of the white house and the pennsylvania delegation on the way to the convention and the pennsylvania delegation was up for grabs and eventually Ronald Reagan would name senator Richard Schweiger as his Vice President a candidate trying to steal that delegation, ford gave up to give the speech and he suddenly deviated from the text to tell a personal story which he rarely did. Then he went back to the text. I had written the personal story of the text so he repeated it. And everybody knew what had happened but then he recovered and laughed and went on and Nelson Rockefeller got up and applauded and got him off the stage and got away with that. Any input or influence over the venue or other production details in which your speech was delivered . Want to get good ability as a speechwriter you put the glory of it in, you can sometimes influence policy. I began to suggest certain campaign changes that the president speak less but speak on certain topics very in depth. I thought his strength was on the issues were carters strength was transcendent, i will never lie to you and im religious and so on and so forth. There was a debate over my proposal between various people in front of the president , the president is going with that one. It was stunning. I still have that note. Thank you for that suggestion. Of the note actually says when we win this election i will move you over to the political picture which would have been nice but we didnt win the election but you can gain influence that way but you have to be credible first, you have to have some successful speeches. What would you say was the biggest or some of the Biggest Challenges related to writing for the president . 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 so there is tension between those things where we think certain things should be set in a certain way and they think they should be said in another way and there is always that tension but i talked to a friend of mine who was a writer for richard nixon. The nixon people were very good at drafting the poll data. Nixon had 24 hour polling in 68 and the poll question was what is the most important question facing america . What is the most important problem facing america . Once the person answered they went a second step and asked what is your suggested solution . In 1968, number one was vietnam, number 2 was the economy, number 3 was crying. The suggested solutions were in vietnam, half the people relatively wanted to withdraw and half the people wanted to escalate. What they did, what the nixon writers did for his acceptance speech was explore long paragraphs on the problem of vietnam meeting the expectation of the audience but he doesnt suggest a solution because the audience is divided. Because we are in a negotiation in paris i cant undercut our operations but i promise you peace with honor. He transcended the division. Then when he went to the economy, one short paragraph on the problem and a lot of solutions because he has got 70 of the audience on his side. The same thing with crime. 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 peroration at the end about hearing trains at the later the American Dream and nixon comes to body the American Dream so the speechwriters get to go full force at the end of the speech by giving in to the pollsters at the top 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 5 great president ial speeches. Would you weigh in on what might be your greatest president ial speech . For me, probably agreeing with davidson, the second inaugural of lincoln is really wonderful because it is compassionate, it is healing, it is calling for bringing the country together. I just think that is a wonderful address. One of the addresses is a little underrated, jeffersons first inaugural. The election had been horribly better between jefferson and john adams. The federalists and the antifederalist, all kind of dirty politics and gone on. If you think it was bad now it was really bad back then. Jefferson says at one point in that speech we are all federalists, we are all antifederalist, he tries to bring the country together and that is an awfully good president ial speech. What speech of yours is your favorite . I think the speech during the bicentennial at valley forge where i start by talking about soldiers surviving in their rag bound feet around these fires starving and eventually surviving at valley forge. Looking forward to what that tells us about sacrifice and how sacrifice has worked for america particularly for soldiers and how we have to honor that as we move forward. I was very proud of that speech. We talked about speechwriting during the campaign for president. You had written speeches or language for folks who were involved in debates. How does that relate to speechwriting . The debate thing is an entirely different world. I coached the president for the debates along with other people. I actually coached dan quayle for his debate in 1988. I can tell you about that experience. You just dont know what is going to happen. It is all about the expectation. When ford went into the first debate with carter the expectation, support was going to lose because carter was a nuclear engineer, ford tended to mumble and mispronounce words. Ford came out of that debate beating expectations and beating carter and the race was dead even. Then we went to the second debate and we knew the questions would be on foreignpolicy, at the palace of the arts in san francisco. We prepped the president. Remember that Ronald Reagan had criticized fords policy of detente with the soviet union. Reagan wanted a tougher policy in the 76 primaries. We knew that would be a question. The question came from matt frankel of the New York Times and he said how do you defend your policy of detente with the soviet union when they are a brutal nation . Ford said yugoslavia has never given into them, romania is moving toward freedom. They dont dominate poland. And went on. Frankel had a followup. Did you say the soviet union doesnt dominate poland and the president said yes, that is what i said. After the debate we ran to the president and said mister president , you said the soviet union doesnt dominate poland. You need to call a press conference and say you misspoke and he said but i didnt say that. What did you think you said . I said what we rehearsed. What was that . The soviet union does not dominate the hearts and minds of the polish people. Wish you had said that. We wish you had said that. Henry kissinger came up and said what is going on . We explained the situation and the president needed to hold a press conference and say he misspoke and kissinger said you cant do that. Im trying to get Anatoly Sharansky out of the soviet union. If you do that are talks will collapse. Long story short they debated for five days and finally in california ford corrected the record but it is too late, the election slipped away. These debates are just mindboggling the tens. When we rehearsed the debates with dan quayle the person who stood in for lloyd benson with his colleague, bob packwood, an excellent debater. In three debates we did with quayle, he did very well. You have to remember dan quayle got into the senate by winning a debate against birch by who is no slouch. We thought he was going to be okay when he went into the debate with lloyd benson but during the practice session Marilyn Quayle interrupted what was going on and said you know, danny, 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. Lee atwater was there and that you cant say that, you cant compare yourself to john kennedy. Whatever you do, dont do that. So the debate goes forward and we are all sitting out there watching what is happening and outcomes dan quayle. Roland can tell you, if you are a debate coach you have seen this. Your debateers get into a finalround and it is like the deer in the headlights. They are just stunned and cant say anything right. For the first few questions dan quayle is a little discombobulated, not the guy we have seen in these rehearsals because it is a different situation with the bright lights in the big audience and so on and then he recovers and get going. Then the inevitable question, what is the first thing you would do if the president were incapacitated . We had rehearsed of the president died, big difference. The president is incapacitated you have to bring the cabinet together. They have to vote that the president is incapacitated and you are temporary president. It was a different question than we expected so he took roger a advice who was one of his mentors and dodged the question. What you need to ask is am i qualified to be president and then he gave his qualifications. They went through a few more questions and it came back again and somebody said that wasnt the question we asked you before. The question was what if the president was incapacitated . Dodged it again. Then it came to tom brokaw who said you are not answering the question. Do you know what you would do if the president was incapacitated and an quayle said listen, i am more qualified now than john kennedy was when he ran for president and of course lloyd benson, you could see him lick his lips, you i was a friend of john kennedy, you are now john kennedy. Then we were all now what is going to happen with the poll data . The poll data did not change. It had no impact on the election, believe it or not. The media made a big deal of it. People dont vote for Vice President. They vote for president. We got off with that one. Debates are really tough to coach. The other one, i helped with george w. Bush in 1984, he was Vice President and he debated geraldine ferraro. That is a 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 then they are not up to the presidency. So handling that situation for a woman is very difficult. I coached some women in debates. On the other hand, when coaching George H W Bush we told him he has to be careful. You dont want to be mean to your female opponent. At the same time, we recommended he answer the questions and always look forward and not respond or direct anything to geraldine ferraro. That worked until 3 quarters of the way through the debate and she said something about foreignpolicy that didnt make sense to him and suddenly he turned and said let me help you with that, geraldine and answer the question. We all went oh my god. Dont blame the coaches. Other tense situations, did you ever write for Crisis Response and is the process different . It is very different. I dont know if you recall at one point in the forward administration in 1976 cambodia seized a merchant marine vessel. I was on vacation. My pager went off and they said you got to get back to the white house, we need your help on this one. We were writing a speech for the president. Is going to deliver it to the nation from the oval office, while all this other stuff is going on in the situation room, how are we going to respond . It was a different writing experience because what are we going to do . How is the president going to express that to the nation . What we are going to do . The response kept changing so i had to keep changing the speech and rewriting it and rewriting it and there was nothing political about this, in terms of 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 writing that. We try to keep those things out of the political arena. If you get those things into the political arena you sully them, they are open to attack from the other side, it becomes a political football. I have no problem with someone tackling the handling of this, if we are in a war we shouldnt be in, the announcement of a crisis is rather pristine and objective it should be isolated from the political world. In the program last week we talked about how a successful speech deliver, crafting broader narrative. Were you able to do that relatively early in the forward presidency or is that something you felt evolved over time, you had a cohesive body of work . It evolves over time. One of the things you try to work out is what is the delivery style, as you are crafting this narrative where they are going. The statement written for ford just after he was sworn in, after nixon resigned, the long dark nightmare for america was over, was a wonderful moment. That established the narrative. We are going to bounce off watergate, bounce off vietnam. The bicentennial is a wonderful excuse to do that. In the speechwriter jargon, a periodic stop. 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. It was something he experienced in his lifetime. Bill clinton was very different. Bill clinton was talking to you all the time. Very conversational style was reagan had that. Finding that style for your candidate, your client, is very different, different for each of the men 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. That was part of the narrative, that he was sophisticated, very witty. In 1980 i wrote a speech for him which he delivered in philadelphia during the pennsylvania primary which we eventually won. There was a line how he wanted to create a kinder, gentler nation. The speech got ruined because bushs press secretary snuck a line into the speech that reagan economics was voodoo economics. Everybody remember the voodoo economic side. It was frustrating when people do that here speeches. That was the tension. When we got up to 1988 and he was accepting the nomination i got that line back in, kinder gentler nation and that was one of the lines that was remembered but the other mind that was remembered was Peggy Noonans read my lips, no new taxes, tough guy on the one side. And the kinder, gentler bush, and he still won the election. If you look at the speeches you can see they have more than one writer, more than one tone and that shouldnt happen. Turning it over to the audience the second to last, what did being a president ial speechwriter teach you about the presidency. It is a collaborative effort, a team effort, you are only as good as the staff around you, but the president has to make a call at some point. The president has to say i am going with this advice. That then redounds on the president and that is why the president is responsible for the speech, the speechwriters right. He has these different choices he has got to make. God help us if we ever have a president that doesnt 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. I think that is what i learned a long time ago and we may be learning it now. Looking back you wrote for the bicentennial. Not much longer on the semi quinn centennial, 250 years since the birth of america. If you were to write a semiclinton tenniel speech, any themes you would want to hit on . One of the things we do that was so successful for the sixth bicentennial speech was the president said i want them to be like 6 chapters of the book, all interrelated, to look forward, not backward. We went with those themes. He gave us that guidance. I think it worked very well. We each were given a little book at the end of the bicentennial. 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 yard where Franklin Roosevelt and churchill had conferences. Nixon retreated to the yard when he wanted to get away from everybody. We were on this, you had drinks as you go down the potomac toward the atlantic and it stops at mount vernon and swings around and they play the national anthem. Absolutely brings tears to your eyes and then you have dinner as you move back up and talk by the washington monument. That was just incredible. And i hope whoever is in charge when we do the 250 years has that kind of attitude. This is a celebration of American Values and we look at these values and display the values we talk about, we not only refer to them but display the values we talk about. Thank you. Question from the audience . Students will come to you, got one up here, olivia. When president ford asked you to make him sound like a common man, did that cause you to write his speeches as if you were the one speaking it . Do you consider yourself representative of the common man . There is a lot of me that identifies with the common man. I came out of the lower middleclass. My father was a navy man who started at the sailor. He was blown off the ship at pearl harbor and swam ashore and survived. We, and men have an appreciation of that. Ford had served. H w had served. He was the youngest pilot in world war ii. Speaking the language of the common man, something i could resonate with. But let me tell you something. I think Franklin Roosevelt spoke the language of the common man. What that means is you are not using highfalutin words. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. How simple can you get . Those are 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 chi is the 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. Other questions . Here in the back. Just kind of curious in the fraternity of president ial speechwriters, do you have any kind of contact with the person or persons the right speeches for donald trump and if you do, i am anxious to hear not only your reaction but their reactions to his somewhat rogue style and is that exciting for the more frustrating experience . As a speechwriter . Thank you for the question. Im not in contact with them but i followed them. Steve miller is the chief writer. Whatever you think of steve miller and the words he is putting in the president s mouth steve miller is a talented speechwriter. If you donald trump gave at expecting the nomination at the Republican Convention, 75 minutes long which is 25 minutes too much and it needed to be edited. The Republican Convention every day had a different theme based on make America Great again so everything was unified, make america safe again, make america work again and so on and so forth. Trump got up to close down the convention with his acceptance speech in the last four lines of the speech were the same as those four days, make america safe again, make america work again, make America Great again. That worked very well i thought in terms of effectiveness in terms of the morality of it. The problem as a speech writer for trump is very often he doesnt stick to the text and doesnt 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. Life is got to be better than what we are describing here. In the speeches then on, trying to build this up. If you look at the state of the Union Address 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 have come off the wings, the plane went into the fourteenth street bridge, crashed into the potomac river, a young man got off the banks, jumped in the ice strewn river and started pulling people out. When reagan got up to give his state of the Union Address he invented recognizing somebody in the gallery. He recognized that american hero. From that point on somebody has been in the galleries, trump has taken this to the ins division. He has had 10, 15 people in the gallery. What does this do . It distracts from a lot of the policy stuff he is laying out but also if you are democrat sitting in the audience and dont want to applaud this president and he is pointing to a hero in the gallery and you are caught on camera not applauding you are in real trouble. That is the strategy and it is very clever. Im not talking about the morality, but the rhetorical effectiveness of it. They have a hard time 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 them to do they are effectivees. When he is on his own he says things that are sometimes unverifiable is a nice way to put it. Other questions. I have two possibly. The first relates to your comment about president ford. He mentioned to you that if he won, he would move you to his Political Group and that didnt happen. My question there is have you had a moment, when you feel you are able to shoehorn in and get a little bit of your politics inserted into the message that you are helping someone else deliver . One of the things i was very much in favor of was using our agricultural surpluses instead of burning them or dumping them in the ocean, letting all the milk go away, create a food bank and take those things to africa or asia or wherever they were needed in the president said we will do that right after the election which is nice. If you get to a credible point with the president , with your client, you can influence policy. I worked for many other people, the shortest president ial campaign ever was pete wilsons campaign in 1996. I was the chief writer there. The only brighter and that is the difference between the campaign and the president. Elizabeth warren probably only has one. Pete wilson only had one. George h w bush from 78 through 80 only had one or two. In the white house you have a big staff. If you get the trust and have a good idea you get input into policy. That is wonderful benefit of the job when it works out. Did you have a second question . We will come back to it. Olivia . Im curious about writing speeches today, social media being a tool, use it, not use it, what do you think of it . You have got to use it. Hopefully you can use it for good. I think of social media, theres a lot of problems with it and we all know what they are. But if you consider it like chemistry, 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 look at his tweets and not anybody elses. That is one of the problems we have with social media and all the cable. If i believe in something crazy i can find somebody out there that also is saying the same thing on some cable station somewhere and affirm myself. That is the problem with social media. It is much harder now to break through as a speechwriter, to get your candidate to break through all of the social media, 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. You can have a good debate like Amy Klobuchar did in the last one. You can have a good townhall meeting like Pete Buttigieg did early on and suddenly you are there where you werent there before. But if i were advising our campaign, i would have a strategy on social media and how to use it. If you dont, you are excluding a whole audience you could be reaching in some way. High. You alluded briefly to writing for women. I was curious if you are writing for a female president , would you approach that any differently than you did with previous mail president s . 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 havent seen a female democrat candidate, correct me if i am wrong, in any of these debates, some variation of that, 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 pantsuit so she was defined and she did very well in that debate. One of the things that you want to avoid, emotionalism. So lets have a very factbased, policy oriented, highly documented approach. That is what they told elizabeth warren. She has done well with that. Unfortunately she contradicted herself or changed her position on medicare for all and that got her in a little trouble but that is where she was going. It was that. Amy klobuchar, when she has been successful, contradicts my rules a little bit, but it was heartfelt and seems authentic when she stated i see you and identified with her audience. That was very effective. It was a risk but i think it worked. There are things you want to go through. If i were writing for a woman it would be very factbased, argument based, organized because you are not supposed to be able to read a man which is nonsense but you want now roaming around and so it would be a long those lines. Host we have time for two more here. When i am writing i have moments when i cant put a word on a page. As a writer yourself with the speeches that are so important how do you go about having Writers Block and handling that pressure . Guest that is an excellent question. I am one of those strange people who never had Writers Block. I dont know what it is. The advice i give, the advice that ernest anyway, he had Writers Block for a long time, and he said that what he did was to write one important true sentence and then right back to it. He said that what he did was to write one important true sentence and then write back to it. There is a novel that his wife published after his wishes after he was dead, the garden of eden, based on a short story. That is the first chapter. The last line of the first chapter is, and then he never could love her again. The whole chapter leads up to that. When you read that line, it hits you like someone slap to in the face. If you get Writers Block, i would recommend the hemingway method, write one true, important sentence and everything will flow from that. Ms. Coleman right here. Mr. Smith if you could write if you could write one more president ial speech, what would it be . And why . Mr. Smith since i never was able to do it, i would like to write an inaugural address. I think the calling to people to those values and displaying those values, living by those values, practicing what you preach, setting the tone for the whole four years of that presidency would be a wonderful thing to do. I would certainly use the lincoln and inaugurals as my model. Excellent question. Thats a great way toul end our conversation. Rt i get so much, dr. Smith, for being with us. Thank you. [applause] you all want before you leave tonight pickup a copy of his book, confessions of a president ial speechwriter. I thinkde theres a major holidy coming up at the end of the week that youou might want to be buyg a gift for a significant other or friend. Heres your answer, right . Join us next week next tuesday, february 18 we will have another discussion will welcome back drt comparing president s Ronald Reagan and barack obama, and were all excited for that. Looking forward to seeing you next week. [applause] [inaudible conversations] live now here on cspan2. Our cameras are in Northern Virginia were democratic president ial candidate senator Amy Klobuchar is holding a Campaign Rally in falls church. Virginia is one of the super tuesday primary states going to the polls next week. This is life come on cspan2. Expecting this to start shortly. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]