Advice from a Comedy Writer

TV comedy writer Ken Levine shares his best advice for trimming your scripts - Kill your babies. Not as bad as it sounds. He continues:
"What it means of course is that you have to cut stuff you love. In comedy scripts that usually means laughs. Why? Because story is most important. If you take out story steps the audience might no longer be able to follow the narrative. Jokes are the tinsel and ornaments we hang on the tree."
So it's a one-two punch. Story first. Next comes the comedy. Not exactly intuitive.
Political campaigns are like that, at least in some ways. A successful campaign needs to tell a great story about the candidate that appeals to people. If not, at the very least, the candidate needs to control his or her narrative and not let the narrative slip into the hands of the forces of the opposition.