Does Barack Obama use speech writers?

[RiverStone]

Politics is a lot like reality TV - what seems real, may be real, but not really real.

Obama's oratory skills are without question, any former President of the Harvard Law Review knows how to articulate a message.

His victory speech after Iowa was hailed by many pundits as the best (to date) of this election cycle among ALL the candidates. Obama was using a teleprompter for his Iowa victory speech; but how much of that speech was written by him personally?

Honestly, the guy is eloquent enough to have written the whole thing --- but did he?

Anyone know how much Obama has relied on speech writers to craft his inspirational words? I will admit, what ever the source - it comes out damn fine!

[NYCGirl]

1. Here's an article from this week's Newsweek:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/84756

Jon Favreau has the worst and the best job in political speechwriting. His boss is a best-selling author who doesn't really need his help, having written the 2004 speech that catapulted him onto the national stage. At the same time, the same boss also happens to be capable of delivering a speech in ways that can give his audience the goosebumps.

But Barack Obama is more than a little busy campaigning across Iowa and New Hampshire right now. So it was Favreau who led the team that wrote Obama's victory speech in Des Moines last week—a moment that prompted the TV pundits to drop months of skepticism about Obama's candidacy to make breathless comparisons with the Kennedy era.

-snipped-

The pitch worked. Favreau and Obama rapidly found a relatively direct way to work with each other. "What I do is to sit with him for half an hour," Favreau explains. "He talks and I type everything he says. I reshape it, I write. He writes, he reshapes it. That's how we get a finished product.

"It's a great way to write speeches. A lot of times, you write something, you hand it in, it gets hacked by advisers, it gets to the candidate and then it gets sent back to you. This is a much more intimate way to work."

Some speeches are much more the product of the candidate himself. Obama e-mailed Favreau his draft of his announcement speech in Springfield, Ill., at 4 a.m. on the morning of the campaign launch last February.

Now Favreau has his own team: Adam Frankel, a 26-year-old who worked with Ted Sorensen on his memoirs, and Ben Rhodes, a 30-year-old who worked with Lee Hamilton on the 9/11 commission's report.

MUCH MORE AT LINK

[RoadRage]

2. Great Info..

I think this shows why he's so good at delivering speeches.. if he's totally involved in the writing process, he's really saying exactly what he thinks & feels - and it comes across. It also allows him to avoid stumbling.. he knows what was written... and although he may not have it entirely memorized, he's the one who created the message.

I wonder if GWB writes his own stuff.. ;)

[NYCGirl]

3. LOL! GWB may indeed write his own stuff. It sounds stupid enough. NT

[Hutzpa]

13. Thank you guys for making

my day!


:hi:

[RiverStone]

10. Thanks for the link! DU is like wiki - always get an answer!

Liberally inclined of course :hi:

[Atman]

4. Does the Pope shit in the woods?

Oh, wait...maybe the Pope just uses his golden throne. But Obama DOES use speech writers. You can bet on that one. Too much money is at stake to let some damn fool go spoutin' off his mouth without a lot of suits signing off on it first.

.

[NYCGirl]

5. You might want to read the article. Not too many "suits" in there. NT

[northzax]

9. or you can buy the spin

from the campaign. of course he uses speechwriters (beyond Favreau), no one writes their own stuff.

and how come Obama gets so much credit for being Law Review at Harvard (which doesn't have anything to do with eloquent speaking, I know a lot of law review people who can't talk at all) but Hillary doesn't get the same credit for being one of the first women at Yale Law (a better school in the first place?) it's odd, no?

[NYCGirl]

12. 1) Yes, it mentions a couple of other writers. 2) He was the first black PRESIDENT

of the Harvard Law Review. A difference from a student at the school.

[northzax]

17. and Hillary

was one of the first 50 women to get into Yale law, not too shabby. And of course, law review rewards academic writing, not public rhetoric. Ever read HLR? It's pretty dry.

Can obama write a great speech? Obviously, the 2004 convention showed that. But let's not forget the greatest speaker of my lifetime, Bill Clinton (who once delivered a state of the union off the cuff, used speechwriters too. There is no shame in it, I want my president thinking about more importantthings than what, exactly, he is going to say to the local rotary club on Thursday, don't you?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

15. It's a conspiracy. nt

[Bitwit1234]

6. Maybe he does, maybe he don't

but they try to make him sound like a rock idol those doodle boppers they like them a lot.

[readmoreoften]

7. I'm sure they all use speech writers. That's why we shouldn't vote from speechifying.

If you want to know who your candidate is, look at the his or her debating not his or her speechifying.

[Bright Eyes]

8. I bet they ALL do.

[RiverStone]

11. Of course they do - but Obama uses what he's got better than most!...n/t

[JDPriestly]

14. Elizabeth Edwards has stated that her husband writes his own.

He is used to speaking contemporaneously. You can tell that. Edwards is the best thinker on his feet. He knows what he is talking about and can just answer about any question you could ask. He knows what he thinks about almost anything. It is amazing. Obama cannot do that. Hillary gets advice on what to say. Hillary is extremely scripted. It is annoying. It makes her look insecure and stupid.

[RL3AO]

16. Doesn't matter who writes it. He just delivers it better than anyone else.