MELANIA SCANDAL EPITOMIZES THE PROBLEMS WITH TRUMP CAMPAIGN

Melania Trump was accused of plagiarizing parts of her
convention speech from Michelle Obama's 2008 speech
at the Democratic national convention,
photo courtesy of CNN.com

Of the many questions asked last week after Melania Trump gave a speech that included plagiarized portions of a speech Michelle Obama gave in 2008, the most fundamental was: why did this "scandal" last for as long as it did? Is it new for politicians or public speakers to draw inspiration, or reiterate sections of somebody else's words? Absolutely not; so what made this small mistake so prominent?

Well, the main reason is that the Trump campaign did NOTHING to try and rectify the situation, nor did anybody other than a background 'ghost-writer' come forward to take responsibility for the speech despite the fact that Melania had insisted days earlier that she had written the entire speech herself.

One might ask, why was Melania Trump writing her own speech for such a momentous event in the campaign? Melania originally did have a speech written for her by Matthew Scully and John McConnell, two proficient speechwriters that have written signature political speeches such as George W. Bush's speech to the nation on Sept. 11, 2001.

Instead the Trump campaign decided to take it upon themselves to write a speech that, rather than disappearing from news hours after it's completion, lingered in the media for days - perfectly embodying the Trump campaign's eagerness to decide and act based on instinct rather than sound, professional campaign advice from competent agents like Scully and McConnell. At an even more fundamental level, the decision to not use a plagiarism-detection software reveals the lack of competence and understanding of the political system.

Not only that, but the decision to go on the defensive rather than 'saving tail' further lingered this scandal from blowing over. While Trump's campaign team relentlessly defended the seemingly small amount of plagiarized words, compared to Obama's similar scandal in 2008 reveals how addressing the situation directly and not dodging responsibility allow for the perpetrator to save their image and quiet the controversy.

Rather than denying that the lifted words were significant or his intentions were wrong, Obama in 2008 owned up to the fact that Deval Patrick was a major influence on his beliefs at that time and that he was an inspired by Patrick, but that he should have made sure to give Patrick credit.

Even the DWS email scandal this week passed over relatively quickly with Donald Trump himself trying to keep it in headlines.

Sorry Donald, but when public relations is handled properly and professionally the blowback is very minimal; however, when an egotistic Washington "outsider" attempts to handle public relations without the proper team a small, nothing of a story turns into a media spectacle that both takes away from the focus Republicans wanted spotlighted with this convention as well as epitomizes the Trump campaign's unwillingness to consult and advise with informed and qualified political insiders.

References
Barbaro, Michael & Maggie Haberman. (2016) How Melania Trump's speech veered off course and caused uproar. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/us/politics/melania-trump-convention-speech.html.
Martin, Jonathon & Alan Rappeport. (2016) Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign D.N.C. post. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/us/politics/19campaign.html.
Zeleny, Jeff. (2016) Clinton camp says Obama plagiarized in speech. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/us/politics/debbie-wasserman-schultz-dnc-wikileaks-emails.html.