Score another one for the scriptwriters.

And score one for the choreographers, too.

If Donald Trump wins a second term as president of the United States, much of the credit should go to them.

The Republican Convention finale last night was straight out of Hollywood, complete with excellent scriptwriting, fine delivery, a fireworks show that seemed endless and live opera performed from a balcony of the White House.

I didn’t deliberately tune in: I was working a 3-11 news shift that essentially entailed keeping our website up to date, so I had the television on a Canadian news channel in the background. They carried Ivanka’s long intro for her dad, the Donald, then they covered his speech.

I was impressed by Ivanka’s delivery. She is a natural public speaker who could easily become a Hallmark movie star.

Trump himself mostly stuck to script, which it turns out was full of exaggerations, according to the reviews afterward. But that doesn’t surprise me. It’s a universal norm in politics: exaggerations, lies, half-truths.

But I couldn’t help but admire the work of the speechwriters. They laid out the Republican platform, and I came away with a better understanding of their view of the America they want. I may not agree, but objectively speaking, the speechwriters did a great job.

Today, as journalists dissect the speeches, Trump will get all the attribution, for better and for worse. But I doubt Trump could have crafted one paragraph of the speech he gave last night, let alone write the whole thing. The visions he presented are the party’s vision — and that of the supporters they represent. Trump’s role was simply to deliver that message, and he gave the best performance of his life.

I’m not going to get into what that party stands for, though I invite American readers to do so in the comments section.

But as someone who acknowledges the people who write scripts behind the scenes — for movies, television shows, plays and, yes, political speeches — I think the speechwriters earned their pay last night. It was a daunting task.

— Jillian