Matt Latimer is a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He is currently a co-partner in Javelin, a literary agency and communications firm based in Alexandria, and contributing editor at Politico Magazine.

Donald Trump, you’ve already performed one campaign miracle. You’ve cheered me up.

Frankly, I didn’t think anyone could lift my spirits so quickly after the season finale of “Game of Thrones.” But Trump’s entry into the 2016 race has everyone in Washington smiling again. Especially the Democrats. How much fun did the folks at the DNC have over crafting this response? “Trump’s entry adds much-needed seriousness to the GOP field.” (Whoever came up with that line is just clever enough to be dangerous.)


Of course, the Democrats can afford to laugh, but the Republicans–well, not so much. And for seven key reasons.

#1. Money Talks

Unlike the other candidates, the wealthy real estate mogul doesn’t have to worry about soliciting donors, or crafting positions to appeal to special-interest money, or meeting absurd fund-raising expectations that they foolishly set for themselves. That saves him a lot of time to devote to his favorite pastime–self-promotion. If he wants to fight all the way to the convention, he could probably find more than enough money simply by searching the couch cushions at Mar-a-Lago for loose change.

#2. Expectations

He’s a nuisance, a hothead, totally unqualified, a spoiler. But enough about Pat Buchanan, whose surprisingly strong, populist, “mad as hell” primary campaign against George H. W. Bush in 1992 left the Bush faction reeling all the way to their defeat in the general election. That nobody thinks Donald Trump has any hope of winning a primary, much less a single debate, makes it all the easier for him to surprise reporters simply by doing better than expected. If Donald Trump can manage a clever quip or two in the first debate, poke fun at himself, and not set his lectern, or the moderator daring to question him, on fire, he’ll impress the hell out of nearly everyone. Besides...

#3. The Front-runners Are Safe and Boring

You don’t spent 14 seasons out-grandstanding a pack of desperate ego maniac celebrities and not know a thing or two about commanding attention. With all due respect to Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, they can’t hold a candle, much less a soundbite, against the likes of Joan Rivers and Gary Busey. Trump knows how to take complicated issues and fit them into bumper-sticker phrases that can appeal to regular Joes (and Janes), even if they sound crazy to everyone else.

#4. The Ross Perot Precedent

A wacky billionaire with a hair-trigger temper and penchant for bizarre digressions decides to run for president. Where have we heard that one before? Oh, yes, when the allegedly nutty Ross Perot grabbed the highest number of votes of any third-party candidate in history, depriving Republican George H.W. Bush any chance of holding onto the White House against a candidate named Clinton.

#5. Voters Like Crazy

Speaking of Perot, this was a man who once claimed Cuban assassins had been sent to kill him. A man who dropped out of the presidential race, before dropping back in, because of an alleged Republican “plot” he uncovered to disrupt his daughter’s wedding. He picked as his running mate a totally unprepared candidate who at one point in the vice presidential debate confessed that his hearing aid wasn’t working. His campaign theme song was–and this is no joke– Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.” And yet H. Ross Perot was at one point the frontrunner for the presidency and still, after finding himself immersed in plotlines that would be rejected as too far-fetched for “American Horror Story,” managed 19 percent of the popular vote. In other words, one out of five Americans thought he wasn’t too crazy to be president.

#6. The Incredible Hulk Syndrome

As much as his fellow GOPers would love to mock and torment Trump, the smarter among them will work hard to restrain themselves. For one simple reasons: much like Bruce Banner, you don’t want to make an unpredictable billionaire angry. A third-party bid, railing against the GOP, could very well destroy whatever plausible chance the party has to defeat Hillary Clinton (who Trump has said he likes “very much.”)

#7. The Agenda Setter

As James Baldwin once put it, “the most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.” Donald Trump doesn’t need the presidency. He doesn’t need to win anyone’s favor. He can just let his what is euphemistically called “hair” down and let it fly. And because the press will love to cover him, he will have the other GOP candidates following one rabbit hole after another, depending on whatever Trump feels like talking about that day – trade with China, Obama’s place of birth, life on other planets, or the plotline of “Mr. Belvedere.” Candidates, brace yourselves. You are about to go on one wild, crazy ride.

Which makes the rest of us pretty happy.