By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: January 14, 2013 2:48 PM

Governor Rick Snyder will deliver his third State of the State speech Wednesday, and he again will speak from an outline, not a prepared text on a TelePrompTer.

I’m somewhat surprised. Mr. Snyder used the unconventional method for the formal address in his first two speeches. It worked well enough in his first speech, but it caused problems in the second one last year. Mr. Snyder’s pacing seemed off, and the speech was roundly panned.

There’s no question, though, that Mr. Snyder feels most comfortable speaking off an outline. I can’t imagine his staff is anything other than a nervous wreck about the outline format because, for one, reading a prepared text off a TelePrompTer would guard against errors like when he referred to Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) as “majority leader” in last year’s speech. And that wasn’t even that big a mistake when you consider the potential for other malapropisms.

Then there’s the headache for staff of trying to brief the news media on what Mr. Snyder will say in his speech without knowing exactly what he will, in fact, say.

Still, it’s Mr. Snyder giving the speech to a Joint Convention of the Legislature before a live television audience. It’s easy to forget that giving a speech under that type of scrutiny is stressful. So if he feels most comfortable using an outline, that’s the way to go.