Finding Obama's voice

Jon Favreau (not the actor) sums up neatly the experience being Barack Obama's speechwriter: "You're like Ted Williams's batting coach."

Obama may not achieve the political equivalent of hitting .400, but close enough. The quote comes from the excellent story on Favreau by Ashley Parker in Sunday's New York Times.

A cherubic 26-years old, Favreau heads Obama's three-man speechwriting team. Also on the team is Adam Frankel, a former assistant to Ted Sorensen, an Obama supporter whose been around a speech or two. (In the spirit of MLK, here's what matters for the fact that it doesn't matter: All three are, I gather, white.)

Favreau has been writing speeches for the Illinois senator since 2005, and the fruit of that relationship shows in the continued high quality of his oratory. The mark of a strong collaboration here: The seamlessness in the quality of Obama's speeches from pre-Favreau through the current era.

"Barack trusts him," said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama's chief campaign strategist. "And Barack doesn't trust too many folks with that -- the notion of surrendering that much authority over his own words."

Speechwriters benefit from the opportunity to learn their boss's voice. The reason JFK and Ted Sorensen are the benchmark for speechwriting is that Sorensen worked for Kennedy for eight years before they entered the White House, including three-and-a-half years traveling the country together laying the groundwork for the presidential run.

Check the flip-side to see the dangers of a less-developed relationship, see Jimmy Carter, whose first chief speechwriter (one James Fallows) worked as a junior writer for only a few months before Carter was sworn in; or George H. W. Bush, who had little experience with his speechwriting team before he took office.

For more -- much more -- I recommend the forthcoming White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters, by, ahem, me.

(I don't know who's writing speeches for the rest of the contenders, but if I find out anything interesting, I'll pass it on.)

Comments

[ystasino]

A speechwriter's job is to channel, organize and embellish a speakers speech. Not invent it.

Obama's speeches are consistent with the visions from his two books the earlier one written when Favreau was a teenager.

Some people just love hating.

[timeforachangenow]

This all smells of "Jimmy Carter-peanut farmer" incompetance...

So now any speech you hear Obama give now is made by a young white guy...how pathetic!

I for one fear what an Obama presidency would do to this country...just what we need...yeah right...

Go Hillary!

[Tellmethetruth]

Obama and/or his speech writer know nothing about RFK, JFK, or MLK other than what they read in a book. It shows.

Obama needs to speak from his own experience and not lift from the words of others. It's sounding too, too phony.

[esl]

Which one wrote the speeches Obama read from a teleprompter in Iowa at the end of the caucus and in NH when the results were in?