Clark S. Judge, the former speech writer and advisor of US. President Ronald Reagan visited the University of Szeged on April 13, 2016. Mr. Judge is a world famous speaker and currently the managing director of the White House Writers Group, where he assists high profile political and corporate clients in speech writing. Among his clients were President George Bush and he was the official speechwriter of President Reagan.

The lecture was brought to the University of Szeged through the Master of International Relations program, MIR organized by Márton Sulyok, Tamás Pongó, and Associate Dean Péter Mezei, with graduate student Gina Sebők working as moderator of the event. The speaker arrived to Hungary on the invitation of the Danube Institute, who was represented at the event by the institutions’ president, John O’Sullivan, the former speech writer of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The U.S. Election Circus lecture series has travelled around the world from Budapest, to Brussels, and even Prague.

The topic of the lecture was the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Judge discussed the possible outcomes of Hilary Clinton becoming president and Donald Trump becoming president. His personal opinion was that the winner of the elections won’t be one of these two candidates. He discussed the security policies of the Republican party v. Democratic party and answered questions from the audience concerning everything from the Islamic State, and the New York Primaries. The lecture was very moving, raised many questions and was presented with a good sense of humor, most importantly excellent insights on Washington politics.

Gina Sebők PhD student