My last bit of ghost-writing for a candidate was in 2012, and though my career as a secret scribbler stretches back to Richard Nixon’s The Real War in 1980, I’m pledged to neutrality this year until the GOP has a nominee. Then I’d be pleased, for free, to work on the Cleveland convention acceptance speech, just to make sure the nominee hits the right Jimmy Brown, Brian Sipe, Rocky Colavito and Austin Carr notes along with the appropriate Northeast Ohio salutes to the by-then world champion Cavs and first place Indians as well as to the prospects of new Browns quarterback Jared Goff.

But I can still offer via this page a line or two or three for each of the major contenders left standing. Though many of them have pretty good deliveries and all have delivered a rousing podium pounder at least a few times, only Donald Trump’s “make America great again” and Marco Rubio’s “a new American century” have wrapped their entire campaigns in a phrase. Some suggestions for the others (in alphabetical order, of course):