Biden’s speech tonight: A speechwriter’s preview

What should speechwriters, especially, be watching for during Joe Biden’s acceptance speech tonight, at the Democratic National Convention?

Co-author of The Political Speechwriter’s Companion and PSA Advisory Counselor Robert Lehrman writes in The Hill that he sees Biden’s essential job tonight this way: to “combine his appeal to moderates with passion, story and energy.” 

Will Biden be able to do that? 

That depends partly on whether he follows the good advice of his speechwriters. Which he does not often do, as his onetime, longtime speechwriter (and PSA pal) Matt Teper told the Washington Post this week. “My job,” Teper said, “was trying to script the most famously unscripted man in politics.” 

In a separate piece in The New York Times today, Teper predicted that Biden would be making edits to the script “an hour or two in advance,” and likely even changing the wording “as he delivers it, to make it better.”