All Trump has to do now is deliver the speech of his life

Donald Trump

Any mention of “the speech” at a GOP convention sends memories racing back to Ronald Reagan’s surprise address in 1976. He had lost the nomination in a bitter fight with President Gerald Ford, who hoped to unite the party by summoning Reagan to the podium for brief remarks.

The result was Reagan’s stirring, seven -minute address about securing individual liberty that left many delegates convinced they had, as author Craig Shirley wrote, “nominated the wrong man.”

Events would show they had, and the Reagan Revolution that was born that night and took root four years later made the speech the gold standard of convention addresses.

It’s a template for what Donald Trump must accomplish with his acceptance speech Thursday night. He needs to do something he’s never done, and that many people think he cannot do.

Before the red, white and balloons drop at the Quicken Loans Arena and his family joins him onstage for the celebratory photo ops, Trump must convince about 65 million Americans that he is ready and able to be president.

Establishing that belief in voters’ minds is the ultimate purpose of a convention. When it happens, the process is a quasi-religious conversion. Instead of a mere candidate, the nominee takes on the aura of a potential president-in-waiting. From that point on, the campaign is more of a quest than an experiment, and the possibility of victory becomes realistic.

That conversion is absolutely necessary in Trump’s case because of widespread doubts that he is fit for the Oval Office. His lack of experience, combined with missteps, misstatements and a tendency to shoot first and aim later, leave him with a steep hill to climb.

Although polls show that the race is tight and that Hillary Clinton is widely viewed as dishonest, she enjoys an Electoral College advantage, as well as a personal one. Her proximity to presidential power and decades in top government positions make it easier for many voters to at least imagine her sitting in the Oval Office.

More than a majority of voters say they simply cannot imagine Trump as president . His challenge, then, is to change millions of minds with the speech of his life.

He should not try to be all things to all people, but he must reveal a man fully ready to lead the nation for all occasions.

The effort to transform him already has started here. While rip-roaring speeches from Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie and many others took the fight to Clinton, Trump’s wife and children used their time onstage to humanize him.


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