It was Franklin Roosevelt who showed us how a politician can get around the news media. His fireside chats on radio were his direct connection with the American voters and they loved him for it. It was a lesson we noted early in our career as a political apparatchik. Some of our most successful campaigns were built on personalized communication. Injecting that personal connection into a campaign was key to some surprise wins.
But it has become so much easier with the aid of the Internet. The example of President Elect Donald Trump is what immediately comes to mind today. This guy thinks he owns Twitter. And he might as well own it. And what he is going to do for a press secretary when he moves into the White House is anyone’s guess.
Can you imagine the White House Press Gallery members sitting around waiting for the President’s next tweet to find out what is going on? The reporters will first have to verify the tweet. “Is the President serious or is he funning us?” Will there even be any responsible press briefings? We all know that Mr. Trump really does not like the news media. Why should he want to help them do their job?
And with all the guff he has been feeding Americans on Twitter about his cabinet appointments, it is a wonder that any of it is being believed? And what is the point of even discussing some of his proposed appointments. Congress gets to advise and consent and Trump has no idea if the Senate is about to make nice on some important ones? It could be the first reality check in the Trump Presidency.
And they will have to install a revolving door on the White House to accommodate all the changes Trump will make in speech writers over the next four years. He reminds us so much of a client we once had; briefly. The client told us what he wanted in great detail. We thought it was easy. He fired us because we wrote what he asked. He actually said that he might as well have written it himself. We thought we had done a great job of organizing, correcting syntax and grammar, and keyboarding it for him.
Judging by his tweets, Trump appears to think in less than 140-character gulps. He really does need someone to at least get them in order, smooth out the syntax, make some sense and give continuity to them.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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